Things That Go Bump In The Night
by yestermeyesteryou
Summary: Future sort of AU. In the bigger picture, Sam and Blaine were barely just allowed to begin. But if you were to inspect each frame a little closer, you'd see just how whole they'd been and sometimes a love is so strong, it can transcend both space and time.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer__: The author of this piece does not, in any way, profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters from Glee belong to their original creators._

___Summary__: Future sort of AU. In the bigger picture, Sam and Blaine were barely just allowed to begin. But if you were to inspect each frame a little closer, you'd see just how whole they'd been. _

___Warning!:____ This story starts off as Blam, BUT Seblaine is a really crucial part of this story. If you like Blam, I really encourage you to keep reading even though this probably will be somewhat of an emotional roller coaster. I apologize in advance for **not revealing any other Warnings **so if you don't like not knowing how a story will progress and end before you start then maybe you shouldn't keep reading? However, I encourage everyone to give it a try and I'll do my best not to dissapoint! _

___Much, much love!_

* * *

_A Good Year_

"I'm back! _And…._ I've got the good bagels."

Blaine blinked lazily as he lifted his head from the pillow by barely an inch, vaguely taking in the sight of a familiar looking paper bag dangling in front of his face. Smiling to himself, he let his head drop back face down into the pillow, hugging it as the scent of newly baked bread was replaced by that of freshly washed sheets. "Am I dreaming?"

Kneeling down beside the headboard, Sam leaned over to kiss the side of a head of short, black curls. "Nope. I'll jump into the shower and meet you downstairs in the kitchen in 15?"

Blaine turned his head to look at the blonde man next to him, hoodie zipped open to reveal a wife beater barely making an attempt to hide the six-pack beneath it. "Mhmm… The kitchen, downstairs."

"That's right. Downstairs, baby."

Another kiss, on the lips this time, and then the sounds of vibrations in the air from a heart that had just gotten back from a jog were replaced by the sound of a running shower. 'The _upstairs_ shower' Blaine thought to himself as he let his lips paint another ridiculous smile on his face once again, sitting up on the bed to place his feet on the hardwood floor in the bedroom on the first morning of waking up in the new house.

Their new house.

Grabbing the bag of bagels from the nightstand, he dragged his tired feet down the stairs to set it down on the counter in the kitchen.

_Their_ new kitchen.

* * *

"I have a new client."

Blaine raised an eyebrow at his boyfriend, who'd casually popped a grape into his mouth following the vague statement. "Alright. Don't you have lots of new clients?"

"I do." The smug smile on the taller man's face gave away the fact that he was holding something back. "But this one is famous."

"Really?" Turning around to completely face the other man on the couch, Blaine reached over to push the bowl of grapes further away on the coffee table in order to gain his full attention.

"Why are you so surprised? Famous people need to work out too, if not more so than us common folk."

"Yeah but…. with you?" He really didn't mean to sound as surprised as he came across.

Pretending to be baffled, Sam splayed a hand across his chest before reaching over to grab the bowl that had just seconds ago been pushed outside of his reach. "If that's the attitude then I guess you don't need to hear the dirt then."

"I'm sorry… There's dirt? What dirt?"

Suddenly, Sam seemed to be enjoying the situation a little too much. "I was even going to tell you his name."

"Wait, you're not going to tell me who he is?! But, so it's a he?"

"You should be feeling really bad right about now because it's good, too."

With puppy eyes powered up to whatever level the absolute highest was, Blaine leaned a little closer on the couch. "Please, tell me his name. I'm sorry."

Sam shook his head as the shorter man practically straddled his lap on the couch, barely able to contain the satisfaction of having the upper hand for a change. "Nope, you had your chance. And also, I'm not allowed to say. I even had to sign some papers"

Hanging his head, Blaine nodded to himself in defeat. "Could you at least tell me the dirt?"

He was just about to shake his head when the power of the look in Blaine's eyes started to take effect. "Fine…" He leaned a little closer, mouth right next to his ear as if not to let anybody else in on the secret, as if anybody else was in the room. "I'm pretty sure he's gay…"

Blaine gasped, then felt embarrassed about gasping just to finally look at Sam with a mouth hanging open in disbelief. "And this person is not out?"

"This person is engaged. To a woman."

"But, how do you know he's gay?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Sam put his hands on Blaine's hips to drag him a little closer. "Because he was just a little bit too interested in my abs and ass to just be jealous of my physique."

"Uh huh…" Blaine leaned in for a kiss, rolling his hips as he raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Maybe it's time that this alleged personal trainer of the stars gives me a workout then?"

Sam stilled for a second on the couch, barely able to hide his excitement as he leaned back to search for a sign of assurance in the other man's eyes. "Really?"

"Uhm, yeah?" Laughing nervously, Blaine wasn't so sure why the taller one seemed so excited at the prospect of 'working him out'.

That was, until he practically tossed him aside on the couch and disappeared into the hallway, only to return two seconds later with a pair of jogging shoes he delightfully tossed in his direction.

"Oh… Actually, I was referring to, you know, sex?"

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, realization seemed to dawn on Sam's face for a moment only to be quickly pushed aside. "Whatever, this will be awesome! Come on, you've barely seen the area at night and we've been living here for a like a month! You're already wearing sweats, so let's go."

Reluctantly tying the shoes because, and he knew this to be true, there was no way he was going to win an argument once Sam had gotten an idea in his head, Blaine still made one last attempt at getting out of it. "But, and as you pointed out yourself, it's night. Almost midnight, as a matter of fact...-"

"-The stars are much brighter out here than in the shitty ghetto we used to live in."

And even though 'shitty ghetto' couldn't be further away from the street their previous two-room apartment was situated on, that was all the convincing Blaine needed to let himself be pulled up from the couch, jogging shoes firmly laced up. "Fine. Let's go."

* * *

"Why are you tuning that thing?"

Sam leaned as far back as he could on the couch to let his head tip backward over the back of it, getting an upside-down look of his boyfriend standing behind him with a curious smile on his face. "Because it's my favorite guitar."

Chuckling, Blaine crossed his arms over his chest. "It's your shittiest guitar."

"But you gave it to me. It's the first thing you ever gave to me."

Blaine walked around to sit down next to him, still curiously eyeing his boyfriend who lifted his head up and stretched out his neck, wincing at the cracking sound it made. "I bought it at a yard sale, because I had no money. Because we were in high school, remember?"

"Ever heard of a little thing called sentimental value?"

He could only hum in response, ridiculously content with the scene unfolding in front of him even though he didn't want to admit it.

"And of course I remember high school." Sam let his hand slowly strum along the six strings of a perfectly tuned guitar, only to quickly pick up the pace in a succession of picking and chords making out a melody. "How about a little Tommy James & The Shondells?"

"No thank you" Blaine lied, because for some reason he always pretended to hate when Sam sang to him, albeit it usually occurred at highly inappropriate times so technically he should've been groomed to at least feel highly uncomfortable at the prospect of it by now. But the truth was that he didn't, and whether Sam was aware of this or not it didn't seem to matter because there he went.

"_Children behave, that's what they say when we're together. And watch how you play, they don't understand and so we're running just as fast as we can, holding onto one another's hand. Trying to get away into the night, and then you put your arms around me and then we tumble to the ground and then you say 'I think we're alone now. There doesn't seem to be anyone around.'"_

And even though he loved it just as much as he pretended to hate it, if not even more, the blush was 100% real.

"_I think we're alone now, the beating of our hearts is the only sound."_

"Please stop…"

"_Look at the way we gotta hide what we're doing. 'Cause what would they say if they ever knew, and so we're running just as fast as we can, holding onto one another's hand. Trying to get away into the night, and then you put your arms around me and then we tumble to the ground and then you say 'I think we're alone now. There doesn't seem to be anyone around.'"_

When he'd finished playing, the guitar had been momentarily forgotten on the couch as Blaine practically pulled Sam into the bedroom by the collar of his t-shirt.

But at some point in the middle of the night, as he'd woken up to make his way down into the kitchen to get a glass of water, Blaine smiled to himself at the sight of that guitar hanging proudly on the living room wall.

_I think we're alone now; the beating of our hearts is the only sound._

* * *

A long day.

A long, _exhausting,_ day

Actors could truly be insufferable.

The walls of the gym truly were quite the step up from the fitness studio that was Sam's previous workplace, not to mention the fancy smoothie-bar to the left of the reception. Sometimes, when Blaine finished earlier than Sam he'd take a seat by one of the barstools there and order himself a tall tumbler of whatever it was that made up the concoction of the week.

This time, it was something with blueberries and banana.

"You sure look like you take care of yourself."

The words came closer somewhere behind his back, prompting him to assume that they were directed towards him. Upon swiveling the chair around and taking in the self-assured grin on the face of the stranger in front of him, they were. "Actually, I don't really work out. But, thanks?"

"Oh." The taller, lean man took a seat on a bar stool next to him, motioning to the girl behind the counter that he'd have whatever he was having. "So what are you doing hanging out at a gym?"

The collar around Blaine's neck felt a little tighter all of a sudden. "I'm waiting for someone." He looked at the other man, eyes pleading for some sort of understanding which seemed to go right over his head, if not simply ignored completely.

"Alright. Tough day?" The smoothie arrived in front of the man who tossed a couple of bills onto the counter.

"You could say that again."

"So what do you do?"

Blaine looked over his shoulder, wondering what was taking Sam so long to finish up. "I work in casting. Theater, mostly."

"Oh. Interesting."

"Most of the time it really isn't." His body felt exhausted just upon the thought of all the self-assured, no-talent auditions he'd had to sit through that day.

"Color me surprised. I heard it involves a couch, no?"

Hanging his head tiredly, Blaine shot him a look. "It doesn't."

"Fine. I guess it isn't that interesting after all."

And not a minute too late, he finally felt the familiar clasp of a warm hand over his shoulder.

"Hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long."

Blaine jumped off of the chair, walking around the counter to toss his empty plastic tumbler into the garbage. "No, but let's go." He offered a small wave in the stranger's general direction. "Bye."

But before following Blaine towards the exit of the gym, Sam approached the other guy and pulled him into some sort of bro-ish hug-handshake type of hybrid. "See you next week, Sebastian."

"Yup." With a hand resting on Sam's shoulder, 'Sebastian' shot Blaine a little wink.

Once they were out on the parking lot, Sam threw an arm around Blaine's shoulders as he carried his gym bag with the other. "I have another little tidbit about our movie star for you."

Blaine smiled to himself as he played with the torn cuff of Sam's Adidas jacket. "So he's a movie star?"

"Damn it… Fine, you got that one as a bonus for waiting for me." He leaned a little closer, pulling his arm tighter around Blaine's shoulders as they neared the car, whispering. "He uses Rogaine, _and_ his hair is going gray. But you'd never know."

"So the plot thickens…"

"Uh huh." Sam tossed his bag into the backseat before jumping into the car. "But his receding hairline sure isn't."

* * *

"You know what I don't understand?" Sam frowned into the mirror before setting his toothbrush aside to take a shot of Listerine.

"What?" The toothbrush hung from the corner of Blaine's mouth as he looked at the reflection of his boyfriend in the mirror before them.

Sam rinsed his mouth. "What color are my eyes? I've always wondered."

"Green?"

"They used to be... But now, they're like more grey, blue-ish."

"Let me see." Standing as tall as he could on his bare feet on the bathroom tiles, Blaine steadied his hands on Sam's shoulders, who in turn had the decency to hunch down a little bit. "Uhm… Beautiful?"

The taller man eyed him suspiciously. "Beautiful?"

"Bright" Blaine nodded. "Really bright."

"Whatever." Sam stood straight, almost knocking Blaine off his balance. "X-Men before passing out in bed?"

Shooting him an almost-frown, Blaine rinsed his toothbrush before setting it aside and following him into the bedroom. "Obviously."

Later that night, Blaine shot up in a sitting position almost covered in cold sweat to the glare of the menu of the DVD playing on repeat on the TV in the bedroom.

Because he always offered to turn it off once the film was over because he was always tired enough to fall asleep, but Sam always wanted to watch whatever deleted- or behind the scenes extra material the disc had to offer.

And so it always woke Blaine up in the middle of the night, usually in the middle of some weird dream where he was running or falling and not even Wolverine could come to his rescue.

_Always._

He practically punched Sam's shoulder, followed by a shove close enough to almost push him over the edge of the bed before admitting defeat and crawling over the other man to reach for the remote and turning off the TV.

And so wide awake, as _always,_ he laid back down on the pillow and waited for Sam to slur something about how he was 'still watching that', but was surprised to instead be pulled into a close hug against a broad chest, humming involuntarily in approval.

Without opening his eyes, Sam let Blaine rest his head on his chest as his fingers rubbed lazy circles through short, black hair, craning his neck just slightly to whisper softly into his ear. "From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good lord deliver us…."

Suddenly the shorter man was a little more awake than before, if that was possible. "Uhm… what?"

"You were having a bad dream…"

"I don't think that explains whatever that was?"

"My mom used to say it to me when I had nightmares."

"Oh. Ok."

And for some reason, that explained whatever that was just perfectly.

_**TBC**_


	2. Chapter 2

_Notes:__ Because some of you have faith in me, I'll reward you with the second update already. _

_Loki Firefox: I'm pretty sure that you're my spirit animal._

* * *

_A Bad Year_

"Where the hell are you?" Blaine was practically yelling into the phone as he slammed the door shut to the last room of the house he'd checked.

"_Working."_

"Uh huh yeah, well so was I. Until I, you know, _left. _And went home. Remember home?"

"_Are we speaking of the same home? The one with that mortgage we're trying to pay off?" _

Sighing, he eventually made his way into the living room to sink into the couch, making an attempt to calm his voice down. "But you're not at work. Because I went there, and apparently you had already left. Sam, I… I can't live like this."

"_Stars don't work out at sweaty old gyms, Blaine. You go to theirs."_

He could feel his heart rate slowing down, forgetting just why he'd become so worked up in the first place. "Your gym is really nice, actually…" Right, that's why. "I just miss you. I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks."

"_But work is going really, really good for me for a change. Can't you just let me have this, for like, once in my life?"_

"Fine." He smiled into the receiver.

"_Besides, the sooner we hang up the sooner I'm home._"

"Can't your movie star do squats on his own?"

"_We were actually just getting started with the warm-down."_

"Sounds hot."

There was a silence on the other end, lasting just a second too long not to be coincidental.

"_Blaine… Where did you think I was?"_

And he chuckled this time, shaking his head as he leaned further into the couch. "I have no idea."

"_Ok. You know I'd never leave you, right?"_

"I know." The reply came quickly, because he did know. Because it was true. "And if you do, I'm afraid I'd have to kill you."

"_I know."_

Between the lines, he could hear the smile.

"_I know."_

* * *

He was getting pretty used to falling asleep alone.

One of the perks of Sam getting home really late was that he'd rarely watch any movies in bed, which in turn spared Blaine from countless nightmares and cold sweats as well as bloodshot eyes the following morning.

But in all honesty he'd gladly take all of those things back in return of the biggest setback of it all, which was that he barely never got to see him anymore.

Never got to be _with_ him.

So it was with a dropped jaw that Blaine witnessed Sam drag his feet into the bedroom at a decent hour, just as he'd finished brushing his teeth.

And it was with eyes staring in disbelief that he blinked to the sight of his boyfriend simply popping in a DVD, peeling his clothes off down to his boxers and crawling under the covers.

"Uhm, hello?"

Sam looked up, sounding about as tired as he looked. "Hi."

"You're watching a movie?"

The man on the bed looked at him questioningly with furrowed eyebrows for a moment, before letting out a heavy sigh and relaxing his features. His eyes went back to the screen. "I'm exhausted, Blaine."

"I'm exhausted too."

"It's not a contest. But if it were, I'm pretty sure I'd win."

They left it at that, even though Blaine knew from experience that going to bed with something weighing on your heart was almost always a bad idea. And sure enough, just like clockwork at about three at night he woke up, shivering to the memory of whatever he'd been dreaming of even though he forgot it only seconds after.

The room was lit in bright letters spelling 'MARVEL' across the screen.

He took a deep breath and tried to suppress the urge to punch Sam in the face as he reached for the remote, not quite as gracefully as he could have if he had to admit it. The room was quiet now, no cartoonish drawing coloring the wall or theme music playing in the background.

There wasn't even the buzz of the DVD player.

And all the while he didn't want to ask himself why he couldn't stop shivering.

"Something, something…-" He whispered into the room, almost embarrassed for himself as he continued. "-From ghosts, and… golf balls…? And things that go bump in the night, god deliver us…"

Pulling the covers tighter around himself, the room soon seemed to almost turn a shade of bright red from the blush that crept up his neck to the sight of the corner of Sam's mouth smirking into the pillow.

"You're cute…"

"I hate you." Blaine practically beamed with satisfaction as he pillow he just tossed hit Sam right on the head.

"But you also love me, so it's Ok…" Came a muffled voice.

"I also hate when you're right."

Sam chuckled, freeing his head from the pillow and tossing it aside. "I love you too, babe."

* * *

"Why don't you ever sing anything for me?"

Looking up from the couch, he felt like he'd been caught red handed.

Sam sat down, resting a hand on his knee. "I know you can. And I know you're really, really good."

Blaine cleared his throat, setting the guitar that had been resting in his lap aside. "Nah."

"Come on." The other man urged, pushing the instrument back into his arms which unfortunately seemed to have the reverse desired effect, seeing as Blaine was getting up to leave.

"I didn't hear you coming through the door."

"That's Ok." It had been a long time since a smile on Sam's face had been so soft. "I can be pretty stealthy when I want to be."

"I like piano better." The words came out seemingly out of nowhere, because Blaine wasn't even aware that he'd been thinking them and once they'd been said, he had to think for a moment to figure out if they were even true to finally settle on the fact that yes, they were. "I mean, I like guitar. But I'm better at piano."

"Huh". Sam nodded curiously.

"Yep."

* * *

Shakespeare.

_Hamlet,_ none the less.

For some reason this particular tragedy seemed to bring out the practically illiterate ones.

Blaine couldn't be quite sure just how many times he'd muttered 'Is _nobody_ classically trained any longer?' under his breath throughout the audition process, but after days, weeks and months of symbolic blood as well as literal sweat and probably even some tears, Hamlet had been cast.

And instead of celebrating with the rest of his colleagues, Blaine was on his way home.

"You have got to be kidding me…"

But there was no one there to reply, because Blaine was standing in the doorway to an empty house.

'There is no way he can be any later than I am today' he swore to himself as he dug into his pocket to fish out his cellphone, only to stare at it for a moment before dropping it onto the coffee table. The sound it made as it fell on top of the wooden surface prompted him to turn around and make sure it wasn't broken.

Instead of calling, because the truth was that he was just so sick and tired of always calling time and time again, he sat down on the couch to wait.

He'd have to wait for another five hours before Sam would come home and when he did, he didn't even notice that Blaine was sleeping on the couch as he walked passed, Let alone that he wasn't in their bed.

* * *

"I can't live like this."

"I'll cut down on work. I promise."

"No." Blaine shook his head in disbelief at the person standing in front of him. "I can't stay here, in this house. With you. Because you can't hear me. You don't even see me."

The pale look on Sam's face would make any stomach turn, especially the one belonging to the person that loved him more than anything.

"There is just no way that this could be coming as any sort of surprise to you, because I've said it about a million times. I say it every day."

"Blaine…"

"Do you even love me anymore? How can you love me, when you don't even know me? Because you don't ask about my day, about my job or my family. And when I ask, you barely say anything."

Blaine stepped closer, and if there ever was a point where Sam had ever felt threatened by the shorter man, this was probably it.

Shaking his head, he almost regretted coming this close because now they were practically breathing the same air as he shrugged his shoulders. It was almost intimate, in some twisted way. "You won't even fuck me anymore. And you know what the worst part is? I'd gladly let you even without any sort of confirmation that you even remember my name, because that's how much I _miss _you, Sam."

The scary thing about standing so close to him in that moment, was the part where Blaine heard his heart breaking.

"Just…. Say something, for once. _Please,_ Sam."

"I…" He just shook his head, the movement causing him to regain about an inch of coloring back on his face only to disappear as soon as it had appeared. He walked backwards until the back of his legs hit the couch, letting himself fall back on it.

Blaine wasn't even crying.

Which was probably why he was so surprised, when tears started to form in Sam's eyes.

"I thought… When you said you couldn't live like this, that…"

It was with a baited breath that Blaine watched the scene unfold in front of him.

"I thought you meant you couldn't live without me."

It took about a second, and then Blaine was on his knees right on front of him, a heavy head supported in his hands. "Sam…"

"I can't believe how stupid I am…."

He'd wanted to say 'No' at first, but eventually his lips settled on a "Yes." He laughed through his own sudden tears, pushing a streak of blonde hair away from a strained forehead. "You are really, really stupid."

When the other man's breathing was starting to return to normal, Blaine stood back up on his feet again, sighing before he spoke with a low voice. "I think I'm going to go out for a little bit."

"Ok." Sam nodded even though he didn't really seem to understand. "Why?"

"I just need to clear my head a little."

"Ok." And it was only then, that the understanding finally seemed to sink in. "Ok."

About 40 minutes later it was with heavy steps that Blaine wandered down the first busy street with bars, shops and restaurants in the suburban area they lived in. He hadn't been here in a long time, let alone with Sam and as sad as the thought made him he couldn't help but radiate from being struck by the heat from the bar he'd just passed seeping into the street.

It was kind of a dive bar, but they'd gone there a countless amount of times, at least during the first year they lived here. And now it had been almost two.

'Open Mic Night' the poster hanging on the door announced.

And just like certain other instances in life, in this one Blaine didn't need much more convincing before walking in. The interior looked about the same, but then again it really couldn't have been more than a year since the last time he'd been here. He quickly spotted the only free, small bar table in the middle of the floor in front of the little stage, on which some guy seemed to be singing his heart out while furiously beating on the keys of the piano.

It wasn't long until he'd ordered, downed and once again ordered a beer.

It also wasn't long until his presence wasn't the only one gathered at the high table big enough for two. For a second before being proven wrong, Blaine hoped it was Sam.

"Hi there, stranger. What can I get you?"

"I've already ordered, but thanks."

The man sort of violating his space on the all too crowded floor huffed in response as he splayed a hand across his chest. "Do I look like I work here?"

And if Blaine wasn't just a tad too old to say things like 'No, duh' he probably would have, but instead he chose to act like his actual, mature self. "No, but that doesn't change the fact that you don't need to get me anything. Because I've already ordered, but thanks, anyway."

Suddenly a sort of knowing smile spread across the other man's face, seemingly oblivious to the explanation he'd just been offered. "Have we met?"

Blaine raised an eyebrow. "I don't think so? I don't get out that much, so…-

"-Juice bar! At the gym. Last year, we shared a smoothie."

Right. That smug, tall and sort of handsome guy was the same as _this_ smug, tall and sort of handsome guy. Figures.

"I'm pretty sure we didn't _share_ anything."

"I'm Sebastian." The man didn't seem too interested in most of the things that Blaine had to say as he grabbed his hand to shake it. "Are you still shacked up with my personal trainer?"

If there was any space behind him to step into, Blaine would have taken a step back. Instead, he settled on frowning slightly in contrast to the wide smile the other man was sporting. "How do you know who I'm 'shacked' up with?"

"You're Blaine, right? Sam talks about you all the time."

Another frown. "He does?"

"Yeah. And speaking of the devil…"

Blaine's back had been turned towards the small stage when Sebastian's smile had turned even brighter upon the sight of something going on over Blaine's shoulder, and when the speakers vibrated with that unmistakably familiar "Uhm, Hi", he didn't have a choice but to turn around.

A spotlight just a little too bright casted a Sam-shaped shadow on the wall behind the stage in the bar. And there he stood, laughing nervously as he fiddled with the strap of the guitar hanging in front of him.

"My name is Sam, and I would like to sing a song to the love of my life who I suspect is somewhere in this room."

Blaine didn't really blush as hard as other people by nature, but for some reason there was something about Sam that had a tendency to bring out a crazy, angry tomato shade in his cheeks. And as much as he wanted to sink through the floor in that moment, another part of him prompted and succeeded in getting him to stand a little taller in the crowd so that Sam would see him.

"There he is!"

Applauds and cheers echoed through the room as their eyes locked over the crowd, tears of joy threatening to escape Blaine's at any given moment.

"Talking to another guy no less, I guess I better hurry up."

From the sound of it, the audience was in a really good mood as they responded with laughter and more clapping.

"So, this is a song that, I mean I'm not sure maybe it doesn't fit the situation perfectly, but I know how much you love Dusty Springfield and I know how much you hate it when I do stuff like this, so here it goes."

After the first strum of the guitar, the whole crowd was completely silent and if he was a little crazier than he suspected himself to be, Blaine would have thought that everyone was holding their breath just like him.

"_When I said I needed you, you said you would always stay. It wasn't me who changed but you, and now you've gone away. Don't you see that now you've gone, and I'm left here on my own, that I have to follow you and beg you to come home?"_

"_You don't have to say you love me, just be close at hand. You don't have to stay forever I will understand. Believe me, believe me, I can't help but love you. But believe me I'll never tie you down."_

As humiliated as he felt by all the attention, in that moment Blaine realized what it must be like to have your very own, massive cheerleading squad following you around as the crowd cheered on. If it weren't sweat collecting on his cheeks it was very likely to be tears, and somewhere in the dark Sebastian comfortingly shook his shoulder before slipping away with the wink of an eye.

No one would ever be able to guess that Sam had been crying just an hour before, because rather than cloudy his eyes shone brighter than the moon that night.

By the time the second chorus kicked in, the entire bar had turned into a drunken but incredibly ambitious choir.

"_You don't have to say you love me, just be close at hand. You don't have to stay forever I will understand. Believe me, believe me."_

"_Believe me."_

That night, Blaine and Sam walked home together hand in hand to the sound of dimmed streetlights buzzing along the pavement.

_**TBC**_


	3. Chapter 3

_Notes:*Presses 'Publish'* *Runs off to hide under a rock*_

* * *

"Leg up."

Blaine hid the laughter in a sigh as he complied, trying to catch Sam's eyes somewhere above him. "Can you stop being a trainer for like five minutes? I think I remember how to have sex…"

"From the way you were speaking earlier tonight one might think it's been so long you'd forgotten how to."

"It's not exactly like – Ow…!"

Smirking down in the middle of his attempt to thrust, Sam's eyes finally caught Blaine's. "You have to relax…"

Trying his best to do exactly that, Blaine shook his head as he tried not to let it show. "Screw you." The lips that found his in the darkness of the room were sweeter than he remembered.

"I love it when you talk dirty to me."

He'd missed this. He'd missed this so much.

"Oh god…" Blaine threw his head back against the pillow, headboard practically bouncing against the wall in tune with every jaded breath. "Why don't we do this every day?"

At first Sam just moaned in response, before leaning in as close as the position would allow in order to steal a kiss. "I think we decided you could use some time off to get to walk and sit and stuff… Fuck…"

"Walking is overrated…"

* * *

"When did you get bagels?"

Blaine winked at the picture of his stunned boyfriend standing in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his hips. "When you were in the shower."

"You're awesome." The taller man walked up to the paper bag resting on the kitchen counter, reaching into it to grab a poppy seed covered bagel and biting into it without bothering to spread cream cheese over it, let alone to split it. "You should check out the living room, by the way."

Blaine had just finished taking a swig from a bottle of milk that he was setting back into the refrigerator before he threw Sam a look over his shoulder. "Is there something going on in the living room?"

"You tell me."

The confused look on his face stayed put until he'd taken the steps necessary to bring him to the doorway where the kitchen and the living room met, darting eyes across the walls before moving onto the floor until he finally caught it. He turned around to look at Sam. "There's a piano here."

"Mhm." Sam tried to keep a somewhat serious face on until Blaine's expression suddenly turned from baffled to giddy.

"Are you serious? Holy crap…." He quickly took a seat on the little bench in front of it, letting a respectful hand gently caress the black and white keys before carefully hitting one at random. "It's tuned."

Soon Sam was sitting next to him on the small bench, sporting one of the proudest smiles he'd probably ever had. "It's nothing too fancy, I just decided to take a note from your book and started to check out local yard sales."

"This is kind of overshadowing my bagels run…"

"Play something."

"Some other time. I only know one song by heart anyway, and it's too sad." And if the smile on Sam's face was one of pride, then the one on Blaine's was simply pure joy. He turned towards the taller man. "When did you do this?"

Sam leaned closer, winking a bright eye before whispering softly into his ear. "When you were sleeping."

* * *

He'd noticed his phone ringing in the middle of rehearsals, but Blaine was not the sort of person to keep 30 people waiting on him to take a private call. He assumed it wasn't important, because the last text he'd checked earlier that day was one from Sam saying '_The movie star's fiancée is pregnant, but it's not his kid. On my way back to the gym."_

But when he picked up as it rang again during his break, he'd never forgive himself for not answering sooner.

Although at the same time, sometimes he wished he'd never picked up at all.

"_Blaine?"_

"Yes? Who's this?"

"_It's Mary."_

There was a shaky breath dangling on the other end of the line, and never before had Blaine heard the strain of someone trying to compose themselves so much before.

"Mrs. Evans? Is everything alright?" He felt the need to ask before changing his mind, because clearly something wasn't.

"_Blaine, where are you?"_

"At work." He laughed nervously, albeit without an ounce of humor in his voice as he ran a shaky hand through stiff hair. "Could you please tell me what's going on?"

She was crying now, clearly not able to pretend that she was able to compose herself in any sort of way.

"_There's been a car accident."_

Until that moment Blaine had never truly understood why people often ask 'Are you sitting down?' in the movies when communicating news that started with those exact words, because it felt like his legs might just give way at any given second.

"You… you mean Sam was in a car accident?"

"_Yes, yes. I'm so sorry."_

"Is he going to be Ok?"

"_No, Blaine. He's not."_

There's a moment in time sometimes, when you just now that hope has run out and somehow Blaine knew the exact words that were to come out of her mouth upon answering his next question.

"Why?"

"_Because it's too late."_

* * *

Another thing that's interesting about the movies and these situations is that they almost always involve someone running through the halls of a hospital, preferably in slow motion with the occasional white curtain flaring in your way.

Which is probably why Blaine still didn't know if any of it was real as he did exactly that, the only difference probably being that in the movies all noise is tuned out as you run and some doctor grabs you and points through a glass window at the person you love lying lifeless on a hospital bed, explaining something that you should probably really listen to but you can't because all you can do is stare.

And all you can hear is music. In the movies, that is.

Blaine didn't hear any music, because life was too loud.

Which was odd.

Odd, because apparently, death was even louder.

* * *

The waiting room of the ICU was quickly gathered with friends and members of Sam's family. Not because there was any intensive care going on, but because that was simply the location of Sam's body at the time.

When Sam's mother had seen him she'd given him a kiss and a hug, and he'd hugged her back. Then followed his younger siblings, and finally almost to his surprise the always stoic father had wrapped his arms around him almost harder than anyone before, only possibly measured by the force with which the man's son was capable of holding someone.

Of holding him.

The still all too fresh memory of Sam's arms wrapped around him was enough to bring him down onto a plastic chair in the waiting room, and he stayed there for hours probably until a hand shook his knee.

"Blaine…"

"Mm…"

Cooper's eyes were bloodshot and if _he_ looked that terrible, Blaine wondered if he'd even be recognizable to himself in the mirror.

"You're going to stay with me for a while. Ok?"

"Ok."

"For as long as you want. Unless you want to be at home?"

He sat up as straight as he could, shaking his head at the floor before looking up at his older brother. "I don't think I can." Closing his eyes for he had no idea how long he licked his lips and tried to remember the sweet taste that lingered after every kiss in the morning, only to realize that it had already been washed away by the salty sting of tears.

"We're here."

When he opened his eyes again, it was to look out the window of a car and onto the driveway of his brother's house.

He had no idea how he got there, because he's pretty sure that if he'd been mentally present he'd made a bigger deal about setting a foot in a car in the first place.

* * *

"You have to eat something."

"I'm not hungry."

"Alright."

If Blaine had enough energy to look across the small dining table of Cooper's kitchen, he'd see the defeated look in his brother's eyes.

"Think you'll be Ok in the guest room? It's getting late."

A shrug was all it took for Cooper to nod shortly to himself, before getting up to retrieve the pillow and blanket he'd prepared for his brother in the guest room and tossing them onto his own bed.

After the first week, Blaine was able to eat cereal without throwing up afterwards.

A day later, he'd moved his pillow out of his brother's bed and into the guest room.

It wasn't a decision as much as he felt like he needed to go back home after the funeral, and it almost surprised Cooper as much it surprised himself when he'd stated it over breakfast, hoping that his brother wouldn't bring up the fact that just a few nights earlier he'd held him for hours as he cried in his sleep.

And then they day arrived. The time to say goodbye, the opportunity to say those things you wished you could have said before.

The church looked small on the outside, thick stone walls covered in white paint hosting a deceivingly large amount of people who had gathered to say farewell to one of the far too young and loveliest men who'd probably ever lived.

'He would have liked this' Blaine thought to himself as he walked up the gravel path along the bushes of pink and white roses.

"We are gathered here today, to say farewell to Samuel Evans. What's important to remember, is not that we only got to have him for 28 years, but rather all the memories we shared with him throughout his life that will last forever."

As much as he wanted to pay attention, it was hard not to drift in and out. The close family, including him, had been given some time alone with the priest in order to communicate what they felt was important to be included in the speech. He wondered if he'd be remembered at all.

"Samuel, or Sam, as he was known to most people gathered here today, is survived by his mother Mary and his father Dwight, younger siblings Stevie and Stacey as well as his partner Ben, who would now like to share a few words."

And that was probably the only thing worse than being forgotten entirely.

With shaky legs he crossed the short distance between the first row and the front of the church, standing behind the podium. "Uhm, Hi. I'm Ben, apparently…"

Somewhere in the church, Sam's little sister sobbed and laughed simultaneously.

"But usually I go by 'Blaine'." He'd avoided looking at the coffin while he was seated, but he figured that out of respect for everyone there he should probably at least acknowledge it. "I'm not going to say much, but… I wanted to let everybody know that Sam is the most beautiful person I've ever met. Or, was…" Gazing over the sea of people, it struck him just how many hearts this man had probably touched on a daily basis. Family, friends. Colleagues and acquaintances. By the back row, he even spotted probably seven of Sam's clients, including that smug, tall guy.

Except right now he didn't look smug at all. As a matter of fact, he seemed pretty devastated.

"There's probably not much else than I can say, other than that I want to thank him. He was my first love, my first everything. If I could ask anyone in this moment, about what I'm supposed to do now… It would be him." He cleared his throat, playing with the cuff of his blazer. "Because I know that he'd have the perfect answer. But I can't."

For the first time, he purposefully looked at the coffin and the beautiful framed picture of Sam's face next to it. It was smiling at him.

"Sam, I'm proud to have known you, and I am honored to have loved you. Thank you."

* * *

He had a backpack swung over his shoulder with some personal things his brother had picked up from his house throughout his stay with him as he put the key in the door to the house. Cooper had given him a ride after the dinner that had followed the funeral, but Blaine had been pretty adamant on returning home alone.

While turning the handle he loosened the already loose tie hanging around his neck and took a deep breath before stepping into the doorway.

It looked about the same, if not a little neater. Cooper had probably cleaned up a bit before his return, restocking the fridge and getting rid of old bread lying around the kitchen.

It was probably around midnight.

Dropping the backpack on the floor, he was just about to lay down on the couch when he heard the unmistakable sound of a plate crashing on the floor in the kitchen.

Acting faster than he'd expect himself to, he quickly made sure his phone was in his pocket before making his way outside the front door and down the driveway, dialing his brother in the process.

"_Hi, Blaine. Is everything Ok?"_

"Can you come back?"

"_Why?"_

The sound of worry in his brother's voice was instant.

"I'm pretty sure there's someone in the house."

"_You're just tired. And probably a little drunk."_

"Could you just please come back."

"_Fine, I've barely made it down the road anyway so I'll be there in like three minutes…"_

"Thank you."

Actually, it was more like two.

Blaine sat down on the couch while Cooper checked every room at least three times, starting to catch his breath and thinking that he must have imagined the whole thing because there wasn't as much as a shard of porcelain on the kitchen floor once they'd checked.

So eventually, Blaine forced Cooper to leave despite his offer to stay because if there was one thing he'd promised himself throughout the last couple of days it was to learn something from all of those amazing qualities that Sam had and actually execute plans and decisions once he'd set his mind to something.

And he'd probably gotten a good hour or two worth of sleep when the familiar pitter patter of a buzzing DVD player along with bright colors glaring at the walls from the TV screen pulled him right out of it in a sweaty mess. "Sam…" He moaned, reaching out a hand to poke Sam in the face in order to wake him up so he could turn off the TV.

But none of that was anything like the wake-up that almost knocked him out of bed at the realization that he was alone.

"Fuck…"

He quickly reached for the remote and turned everything off, just sitting there trying to catch his breath for a few seconds before he grabbed the covers and made his way into the living room.

He probably should call Cooper, he thought. But on the other hand, he really didn't want to bother him.

_Again. _

The couch made as good a bed as anything else.

He took a deep breath, pulling the cover tighter around himself as he closed his eyes and tried to remember. "From Goolies and golf balls and things that go bump in the night, dear good deliver-"

"-There's nothing about golf balls in there, Blaine."

He pressed his eyes even more tightly shut upon the sound of that voice echoing between the halls of the living room. It sounded like it came from right next to him. "Then how does it go?"

"From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good lord deliver us."

He felt a hand brush back a couple of curls from his forehead that had broken free from all that cold sweat.

"You don't have to be scared, Blaine."

A shaky breath.

"But I am."

He was still too terrified to look, even though the hand on his face felt so safe and warm.

"Why don't you play me something? You said you would."

"I can't…"

"I know you can."

The hand disappeared, prompting Blaine to finally open his eyes but there was nothing there. And even though he figured he must be way more mentally exhausted and as his brother already had pointed out, probably a little drunk, there was something that got him to kick the covers aside and throw his legs over the edge of the couch, getting up to sit down by the piano.

Clearing his throat, he brought his hands up to the keys and let them lead a melody he thought he'd probably forgotten, since it had been so long.

It really wasn't something that he'd usually do, seeing as bursting out into song at any given moment was more Sam's thing.

He'd been that way too before, long ago. But somewhere over the years, he'd walked off the stage, moved to the sidelines and by now he practically spent his life sitting by a narrow table right in front of it, inspecting and judging other people's performances.

"_Is it a kind of dream? Floating out on the tide. Following the river of death downstream, or is it a dream?_"

He'd begun to sing before he noticed it himself, surprised by the fact that he seemed to know the words.

"_There's a fog along the horizon. A strange glow in the sky. And nobody seems to know where you go, and what does it mean. Oh, is it a dream."_

The hand was back now, resting on his shoulder and giving it a little squeeze. The room was already dark, and yet his eyelids didn't seem to find any other way but down.

"_Bright eyes, burning like fire. Bright eyes, how can you close and fail. How can a light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale, bright eyes."_

A soft hum. And then the hand was gone.

"_Is it a kind of shadow? Reaching into the night. Wandering over the hills unseen, or is it a dream?"_

"_Bright eyes, burning like fire. Bright eyes, how can you close and fail. How can a light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale, bright eyes."_

_**TBC**_


	4. Chapter 4

There were a lot of things that Blaine almost couldn't find himself living with.

The pain, of course, was the most prominent one. There was a Sam-shaped hole in his heart and every time he thought he'd found a safe place to set his unsteady feet on the ground, he'd fall right back into it again.

Tumbling.

After the first night in the house, Cooper had come over the next day with groceries and to check if everything was alright. Blaine lied and said that it was fine, and the process repeated itself over the next three days. Unless 'fine' meant hiding under the covers at night and praying to a god you're pretty sure doesn't even exist while focusing on the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, only to stay right outside the bedroom and then just disappear.

Then there was the guilt.

The guilt that clawed at him from the inside, that consumed almost every moment of the day and night that he didn't spend sitting numb in the empty shell of a person whose name was Blaine Anderson.

He'd been so needy. Questioning Sam's every move and motivation and setting irrational limits and even threatening to leave, all because of his own inability to look outside of how he was feeling and to think of someone else for a change.

Someone like Sam.

'_You don't have to say you love me' _he had sung to him.

The fact that Sam might not have known just how unspeakably much Blaine had loved him broke his heart.

But at least the DVD player hadn't inexplicably woken him up in the middle of the night for the last couple of days.

The piano stood in the corner of the living room, just like it had since the first morning he'd gotten it and the fact that Sam might not have known just how much he loved it broke his heart all over again.

It was late at night, just like every lonely night eventually gets, when Blaine sat down on the small bench and set the sheet music in front of him.

A deep breath to the sound of fingers cracking, before a melody began to sing

The closing of an eye.

"_How many times do I have to try to tell you that I'm sorry for the things I've done?"_

"_When I start to tell you, that's when you have tell me 'Hey, this kind of trouble's only just begun.' I tell myself too many times 'Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?'"_

"_That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words that keep on falling from your mouth… Tell me why."_

"_I may be mad, I may be blind, I may be viciously unkind but I can still hear what you're thinking. I've heard it said too many times that you'd be better off… Besides… Why can't you see this boat is sinking? Let's go down to the water's edge and we can cast away those doubts."_

"_Some things are better left unsaid, but they still turn me inside out… Tell me why."_

Hands ached from the furious beating of the keys, matched only by the relentless pounding somewhere deep inside his sore chest.

"_This is the book I never read, these are the words I never said. This is the path I'll never tread and these are the dreams I'll dream instead."_

"_This is the joy that's seldom spread. These are the tears, the tears we shed. This is the fear, this is the dread and these are the contents of my head."_

"_These are the years that we have spent, and this is what they represent. And this is what I feel..."_

"_Do you know what I feel? Because I don't think you do."_

* * *

"Blaine… Nobody would even as much as bat an eye if you need more time."

Shaking his head at his colleague, Blaine flipped through a script full with notes he needed to go through as he tried to ignore the concern in her voice. "I don't need time, I need to do something." He looked up at her, eyes pleading a silent wish. "Or else I think I'm going to lose my mind."

Martha smiled at him in the way that only scarf-wearing women with comically shaped glasses who are old enough to be your mother can, setting down one of the take-away cups of coffee she'd been holding in front of his little work station on the long, narrow table.

"So. Do we think Hamlet can pull it off?" A change of topic would be nice, he'd thought.

"I hope so. We still need a stand-in for Ophelia."

"And that's who we're looking for today?"

She took a seat next to him by her designated chair, opening up her red leather bound calendar almost splitting at the seams of post-its and notes. "That's who we're looking for today, correct."

A girl came in through the door at the back of the room, nervously approaching as other colleagues took their seats by the table. Blaine scribbled something into his notebook, setting his game-face on. "Do you think she'll be it?"

"Well, 'To be or not to be' was the question, wasn't it?" She had a stupid smile on her face as she bumped her shoulder with his.

"Then I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

* * *

He'd fallen asleep on the couch after his regular dinner of a bowl of Cheerios and a bottle of red wine, glass about to fall from the loose grip of his hand hanging over the edge of the couch.

When it did, the splatter of glass and spilt wine on the hardwood floor made it look like blood.

"Fuck…"

Blaine dragged himself into the kitchen to get some paper towels as fast as he could convince himself to, pretending to care while ignoring the inconvenient fact that he was barefoot.

And if he weren't already on his knees in front of the mess on the floor when he realized what he was about to discover, he'd probably instantly have fallen down.

"What..?"

The guitar that so proudly had hung on the wall almost ever since they'd moved in was gone. It hadn't fallen down, and was nowhere else in the room and Blaine was far too disconcerted to track back if it had just happened, or if it in fact had been missing ever since he'd gotten back to the house.

The empty space on the wall brought an instant tear to his eye, the small pool of wine and shards of glass immediately forgotten as he approached the vertical surface, running a finger down the neat, white paint.

A chill traveled down his spine as the sound of the bedroom door slamming open wide upstairs vibrated through the otherwise completely silent house.

He'd probably always been a little more scared than most people, and he would have thought that his instincts screaming at him to run had deafened his ears if it weren't for the fact that he could hear the strange noises coming from upstairs. But in spite of this, there was something that caused his feet to move in the opposite direction.

With one hand on the rail, he'd made it halfway up the stairs by the time the music started playing.

Strings, gently plucking out a melody that caused his heart to race and to stop at the very same time.

By the time he was right outside the open door, that's when the voice began to sing.

"_Are you lonesome tonight?"_

The sting of tears made it hard to see, yet somehow the vision was almost crystal clear.

Sam looked up at him from his cross-legged position in the middle of the bed, guitar gently resting in his arms.

"_Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?"_

Wet trails down his cheeks sparkled in the reflection of the moonlight seeping through the flaring curtain. And even though he couldn't understand any of it, his first response was to simply nod.

"_Does your memory stray to a bright, sunny day? When I kissed you and called you sweetheart."_

"_Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?"_

"_Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?"_

"_Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?"_

He'd finished playing after the last word, one last strum of perfectly tuned strings and then he just sat there, looking up at Blaine from the bed.

This wasn't happening.

"Sam…" Bidding a quick farewell to his sanity, Blaine stepped closer to the bed.

"Hi." And then that smile. So soft.

"You can't be…" He shook his head, blinking furiously as silent tears fell down right next to his bare feet on top of the hardwood floor.

"Did you miss me?"

Blaine nodded again, breath stuck deep in his throat as it continued to make hitched, strangled sounds. "Why are you here?"

"I live here."

And that was all it took for the first, full-fledged sob to escape his mouth only to quickly be covered by pale fingers, as he fell down on his knees in front of the bed hiding his face in his hands. He didn't need to look up to know that within seconds, Sam was sitting in a similar position right next to him, holding him up and running a comforting hand up and down his spine.

"Please don't cry."

"I don't understand… You're…-"

"-I know. I know."

"I'm so sorry, Sam. I'm so sorry…"

"Please don't."

He'd been reduced to a blubbering mess on the floor, the only thing keeping him from crawling into a fetal position to hug his knees until he couldn't feel them any longer were the two strong arms and their steady hold, keeping him somewhat upright.

"Can I tell you a secret, Blaine?"

The whisper was soft, right next to his ear as he nodded slowly, trying to remember how to breathe. The following words where barely even there.

"Time heals….-"

"-I don't believe you."

"I know you don't believe me, now. But you will."

"Oh god…" He shook his head in his hands before reaching one down to the big one resting on his leg, holding it as tight as he could. "You were right, you know."

Sam brought his face close to the warm space on the back of Blaine's neck. "About what?"

"About what I meant when I said that I couldn't live like this… Because I can't live without you."

"Yes you can…"

"No, no I can't. I don't know how."

"Shh…"

Blaine felt the lips pressed against the prickled skin on the back of his neck leave kisses, so soft and so sweet. "I can't…"

"I know you can."

He opened his eyes, staring at the foot of the bed as the hand holding onto Sam's squeezed tighter. "Where are you now?"

"I'm right here."

"Have I… have I lost my mind?"

A chuckle, followed by another little kiss. "Maybe a little."

"Can you stay? Please… stay."

It was a moment followed by a silence before Sam spoke again, and as he did Blaine could feel the tiny splatter of a tear landing on his neck.

"I'm not supposed to be here."'

"Please. I can't do this alone…-"

"-You're not alone, Blaine."

"Yes I am." He shook his head, the movement causing even more tears to fall onto the floor. "I'm all alone now."

And there was something about how the other man could whisper into his ear that caused his heart to flutter each and every time, reminding Blaine of the fact that apparently, it still could.

"Can I tell you another secret, Blaine?"

Another nod.

"This wasn't supposed to happen."

The dark haired man sitting barefoot in the middle on his bedroom floor listened carefully to the words meant for only him.

"We actually grow old together."

"We do?"

"Mhm… If this wouldn't have happened then we would have grown old together, in this house. Like, really old. And I don't even die first, because you do."

"How?"

"Pneumonia. But you get super old and have a full, beautiful life so it's Ok."

"Ok…" The chuckle that escaped his lips came out with a weird noise. "Do we have kids?"

"Yeah. A daughter, named Julia and she has dark curly hair and looks just like you, even though she's adopted. We think her parents come from Brazil, and when she grows up she becomes a dancer."

"Really?"

"Really. And we are really proud of her."

The thought warmed his heart for the first time ever since they'd been one, instead of two. "Are you proud of me…?"

"So proud."

Nodding to himself, Blaine took a shaky breath as he focused on trying to get his heart to beat less furiously because he was pretty sure that if it kept going on like this, soon it would leap out of his chest into a bloody mess on the floor just like the broken glass of wine earlier that night.

"Do you know what happens to me, now?"

The answer came with the shake of a forehead, side to side behind his head.

"Please, just stay."

There was another one of those silences before Sam spoke again. "Ok…"

"Ok?" Blaine turned around in the other man's arms, looking for some kind of reassurance in those bright eyes.

A nod. "Let's go to bed."

The taller man helped him stand on the cold floor, unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off his shoulders before getting to work on the belt and pants, holding his hands as he stepped out of them and pulled him with beneath the covers.

"You can watch a movie if you want." Blaine turned his head on the pillow to look at him, and Sam's face was just as beautiful as ever as a moon shadow gently danced across it. "I won't be mad, I promise."

Sam chuckled softly before pulling the other man into a hug and settling behind Blaine on the bed. "I think you've had enough nightmares for a while…."

"Ok." He almost felt safe again, safe again to feel tired at night, safe enough to yawn. Almost. "Hey, Sam?"

"Mm?"

"You said I die from Pneumonia."

"Mhm."

He paused for a second before asking the question that sprung into his mind just a moment ago. "How do you die?"

Sam chuckled again, the arm wrapped around the shorter man's waist pulling him a little closer. "I die just a couple of days afterwards. So it's Ok…"

"Oh." Blaine sort of nodded to himself, allowing himself to yawn one more time. "But how do you die?"

There was no chuckle this time. "I think we should sleep now."

He frowned into the darkness of the room. "Tell me."

"I don't want to."

"Please…"

There was a deep sigh pressed into the back of his neck.

"I am really, really old. And weak. Remember that."

"Just tell me."

"Ok."

Sam took a deep breath before continuing, finding Blaine's hand resting somewhere on top of the sheet to give it a little squeeze.

"From a broken heart."

When he woke up the next morning, he woke up alone.

But when he'd blinked his eyes a couple of times, reaching for a hand that wasn't there Blaine noticed that the scent of the half of his heart that had gone missing still lingered in the air.

_**TBC**_


	5. Chapter 5

_Notes:__ Thanks so much for the reviews and messages! You don't know how much I need them! To live! (write)_

* * *

"If your only sources of nutrition are cereal and red wine then just how the hell are you still alive?"

Blaine shrugged absentmindedly at his brother, who was looking disapprovingly at him as a result of the amount of bottles in the trash he'd just taken out as he came back through the front door.

"Am I, though?"

"Blaine…-"

"-Not now, Cooper. Please."

He felt bad.

Bad because he knew how terrible it must look, and he knew just how badly it was eating his brother up inside that no matter if he told Blaine what to do 90% of the time, in the crucial moment when he actually needed him to listen, Blaine wouldn't.

The fact that he was his older brother no less probably didn't help.

"What would you like to eat?"

"I don't know."

"How about if I brought some chicken?"

"Sure."

He'd just need to remember to take the trash out himself before Cooper came over the next time so he wouldn't see it lying in the garbage.

Cooper had moved to the dishwasher now, starting to empty it. It mostly consisted of glasses and bowls. "So how's work going?"

"It's good. Good to keep busy."

"Good." He clapped his hands together as he shut the door to the dishwasher, giving the kitchen a quick onceover in case he'd missed anything before looking back at Blaine. "So, is there anything else I can get you?"

"Wine?"

Shaking his head as he approached him, Cooper grabbed onto his shoulders and gave him a little shake and a smile before continuing out the door. "One bottle. And try to spread it out over a couple of days, will you?"

"Ok. Thanks."

* * *

He hadn't sat himself down by the dinner table by himself since the accident.

There was a plate in front of him, as well as a knife and a fork and in the middle of the table there was a serving plate of grilled chicken and some salad that Cooper had prepared for him before taking off for the night. The bottle of wine was almost empty already.

He wasn't hungry.

It had been five days since he'd fallen asleep next to Sam, and ever since he'd woken up that morning he'd been alone. A different alone.

He wondered if he'd ever come back again, as well as where his notebook was so he could make a note to himself to find a good mental institution that was still decently priced when he heard the sound of familiar footsteps coming down the stairs.

Because apparently thinking of Sam was like speaking of the devil.

"Aren't you going to eat that?"

First, a warm hand landed on his shoulder and gave it a little shake. He was scared of turning his head just in case Sam wouldn't actually be standing there because he didn't think he could take the disappointment that evening, so instead he closed his eyes and waited until it sounded like the other man had come into view and taken a seat on a chair right in front of him.

And just like that, there he was.

"I'm not really hungry."

Sam lowered his eyes over the table, before standing up and reaching for Blaine's plate to grab a couple of slices of the chicken as well as a bit of salad and setting in back in front of him. "You should eat."

For a second, Blaine forgot why he was sitting there with food he hadn't prepared himself in the first place. "And what if I don't?"

Sam chuckled, leaning back on his chair while crossing his arms over his chest. "I heard you might starve to death."

Twisting a sad eyebrow, Blaine's eyes locked with Sam's over the table. "Would that be so bad?"

Suddenly, Sam didn't seem so amused any longer. "Yes, Blaine. That would be bad."

He could feel the defiance in his own eyes, both of them refusing to budge their stare at the other until finally, Blaine's gaze wavered downwards. He brought his right hand to the table, picking up the fork.

Managing to scoop up a piece of chicken as well as half of a cherry tomato, he slowly began to bring the fork to his mouth before noticing that the amused smile was back.

"Good boy."

He dropped the fork. "I'm only doing this to please you, so if you want to be annoying I might as well screw it."

"Ok, Ok. I'm sorry." The smile was still there, and if there was anything that Blaine would always forgive within a heartbeat it was one of those smiles. "But that testy attitude probably comes from a deficiency of like, all the nutrients. Just saying…"

Another try.

He chewed carefully, trying his best to suppress the feeling of his stomach rejecting solid foods but by the fourth bite, it almost felt normal again.

"See, it's not so bad."

"No." Blaine nodded, the thought running through his mind at that moment making him a little sad. But he thought he'd voice it anyway, so he pointed his fork to the plate. "You would have liked this."

"Yup." Sam nodded in agreement. He also looked a little sad as he leaned closer over the table. "Blaine?" Apprehensive, almost.

"Mm?"

"Can I tell you something, and you promise me you won't be mad?"

Eyebrows twisted in confusion on his forehead as he swallowed his probably 10th bite. "Depends on what it is."

"You have to listen to your brother. He's worried about you."

Blaine wanted to protest, and probably would have unless his mouthful hadn't given him an extra few seconds to think. Instead, he answered with what he knew was the sensible response. "I know."

"Ok."

The plate was almost finished by now, albeit it hadn't exactly been very full to begin with.

"Did you only come by to tell me what to do?"

"No." Sam's response was quick, but honest all the while. "I came to have dinner with you."

"Then why aren't you eating?"

He was silent for a moment, as if he needed a second to figure out how to break the next part. "Because I don't."

"Ok." He figured some things were probably best left unexplained. "Do you still watch movies?"

And then, the smile was back again.

"Of course I still watch movies."

* * *

'Maybe I can stay like this forever' Blaine thought to himself as he snuggled a little closer, laying his head on top of Sam's broad chest while blissfully ignoring the lack of the sound of a beating heart.

The credits were rolling, and for once he wasn't already asleep as they did. There was a hand in his hair, fingers rubbing lazy circles into his scalp when he felt like he couldn't keep the thought lingering in his mind just a thought anymore.

He let a hand travel up a ridiculously hard abdomen, before creeping down a little lower to finally play with the hem of Sam's boxers. That was, until he felt a hand grab onto his wrist, keeping him from doing anything else.

He felt a little like crying.

"Why…?"

"Because." The tone of Sam's voice was final, yet somehow full of remorse at the same time.

"Please, Sam…"

The taller man shook his head, as if to block out the pleading of the other person on the bed.

"Why can't we just be? Like before. You're here, now."

"That's not how it works, Blaine."

And even though he wasn't in the mood any longer because he couldn't help but get turned off by how pathetic he felt, he also couldn't stop.

It started with the first kiss they'd shared, ever since Sam had come back to haunt him.

Blaine leaned on his side, hand still trailing up the muscles on the other man's stomach as he scooted closer, pressing his lips against Sam's. And then the hand was back in his hair, with needy little tugs this time as Sam's hungry lips responded to the kiss while another hand found Blaine's back, the palm of a hand pressing against the small of a back.

And then, separation.

"No, no we can't. Just drop it, Blaine. Please."

"Please just take me, just this one time...-"

"No."

"Then… take me with you." Blaine stilled on the bed, as he concentrated on the heavy sigh that Sam was taking.

"That's definitely not going to happen."

"Why not?"

"Because, it's not time for you." Sam stood up from the bed, grabbing his t-shirt and jeans from the floor in the process while Blaine sat up, something looking a lot like panic looming on his face.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to leave."

"I'm sorry." It wasn't exactly the first time that his entire body felt full with guilt and remorse. "Just, come back. I won't do anything, I promise."

Sam was buttoning his jeans now, getting ready to put his head through the opening of the t-shirt.

"You can trust me."

Once he was fully dressed, Sam's breathing seemed to calm down a little.

It always broke Blaine's heart every time his bright eyes turned cloudy and grey.

"I know."

The look on Blaine's face prompted him to elaborate, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

"It's just that I don't think I can trust myself." He was walking back towards the bed now, sitting by the edge as Blaine came closer on the mattress.

"Why is that so bad?"

It was killing him, all over again, that Blaine didn't seem to understand. "It's… It's something you were thinking. Earlier."

"And what was that?"

Sam grabbed onto his hand, for the first time noticing just how bony his fingers had turned with time.

Such a short, terrible time.

"That maybe you could stay like this forever."

* * *

"You look better."

Blaine sent a comical frown in Martha's direction, as she offered him a cigarette that he so kindly refused with the wave of a hand. "Did I look worse before?"

The look on her face mirrored his as she lit her smoke. "Is that a serious question?"

He smiled at her, as they sat on top of the steps to the backdoor of the small theater. "I'm eating again."

"Oh, and what brought on that change?"

He shrugged, looking into the distance as far as one could while sitting in a back alley. "Someone pointed out that I might starve to death."

"Still drinking?"

The frown wasn't comical this time, as if to signal the question 'how would you know'?

"Please, Blaine." The smoke falling from her mouth came out in a small white cloud, slowly rising as it did a little dance before disappearing into the air. "I'm a widow too, you know."

"Right…" He wondered just how self-absorbed he must be coming across right now, as well as pretty much all the time. "I'm sorry."

"Don't. Just be careful." Another deep drag. Another dancing cloud. "I don't know what meds they've got you on but I recall myself almost burning down the house one night after a rather unfortunate incident involving a reading mistake on my prescription and a bottle of gin." The smile tugging on the corners of her mouth never failed to cheer him up, even if it was just in the slightest of ways.

"Oh." He mirrored her smile. "I got some stuff, but it made me feel sick so I'm not on anything."

"Anything?"

"I mean, other than my poison of choice."

She laughed, knocking the thick, black frames on her face down her nose a notch. "Red wine?"

"Red wine."

* * *

The phone was ringing.

Which was weird because usually nobody called them on the landline any longer.

But apparently, nobody was somebody now.

"Anderson."

"_Um, Hi. Is this Blaine?"_

"Yeah…" The voice barely rang the slightest of bells as he scratched his head. "Who's this?"

"_You probably don't remember, but we met a couple of times. Actually, Sam used to be my trainer."_

"Oh." Suddenly, the bell rang just a little louder, but he still couldn't put a name to the face he thought might belong to the voice speaking, let alone why they'd be calling in the first place. "What was your name?"

"_Sorry, I'm Sebastian."_

Sebastian.

"Right…"

"_I'm sorry if I'm calling at a bad time, but I just wanted to tell you something that I haven't been able to shake ever since, well… Everything."_

His mind was running completely blank as to what it might be.

"_I was at the funeral."_

"I know."

"_You do?"_

"Well, yeah." He cleared his throat. "I mean, I saw you there."

"_Oh."_

A pause.

"_What you said was really beautiful. Really brave."_

"Did you call to tell me that?

"_No."_

Another pause.

"_I wanted to apologize. Because I wanted to ask you out a couple of times even though I knew you were with Sam, who is such a great guy and I barely even knew you at all so… Although, I kind of felt like I did. Because he talked about you."_

"Was."

"_Sorry?"_

Blaine swallowed the lump suddenly stuck in his throat. "Was a 'great guy'."

"_Right, yeah. Sorry."_

"It's Ok."

"_So I'm sorry about that, too. He really was a great guy and I seem to have a blatant disregard of other people's feelings more than half the time."_

Chuckling into the receiver, Blaine felt relieved at the lump in his throat slowly disappearing. "I suspected as much."

"_Well, I won't bother you any longer, so thank you for your time."_

"That's fine. Take care then, I guess. Maybe I'll see you around."

"_Ok. Bye."_

The second he'd hung up the phone, he felt the cold chill of someone breathing down his neck.

"He's a heartbreaker."

"Oh my god…" Taking a step back, Blaine made an attempt to catch his fleeing breath with a hand splayed over his chest. "You scared me."

Sam shrugged his shoulders, a little smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. "I guess that's kind of my thing, now."

Blaine didn't wait for his heartbeat to slow down before stepping towards the other man, throwing his arms around him and holding him tighter than probably ever before.

Because usually, he was the one being held.

"I though you weren't going to come back…"

The taller man returned the hug, trying to ignore the sound of Blaine's voice breaking. "Did you eat?" He leaned back just enough to get a look of his face because sometimes Blaine's words could lie.

But his eyes couldn't.

"Yes."

Another tight hug.

"Did you drink yourself into oblivion…?"

If Blaine were to lift his face from the other man's t-shirt covered shoulder, there'd be little visible stains of tears there. Instead, he just shook his head against the fabric. "No."

"Good." Sam nodded, and now his voice was on the verge of breaking just as well. "Good…"

They had been standing there in the kitchen for a while, arms held tightly around each other's bodies by the time Blaine could hear the soft hum of a melody right next to his ear, both of their two sets of feet stepping slowly now from side to side.

"_Some enchanted evening…"_

Blaine laughed through the clouds in his eyes. "'South Pacific'? Really?"

And through the words falling from his mouth, Sam laughed in return.

"_You may see a stranger…. You may see a stranger across a crowded room."_

"_And somehow you know. You know even then. That somewhere you'll see them again and again."_

"_Some enchanted evening, someone may be laughing. You may hear them laughing across a crowded room. And night after night, as strange as it seems."_

"_The sound of their laughter will sing in your dreams."_

_**TBC**_


	6. Chapter 6

_Notes:__ Loki's stand-in has brought to my attention a seemingly beautiful film called Truly, Madly, Deeply. I was not aware of this film! And I still haven't seen the whole thing but I did some research on in, it's is definitely very similar to this story in some respects and I was going to do a little music-related shout-out to the movie Ghost in a later chapter, but I couldn't help but include a little gem from Truly, Madly, Deeply in this one._

_I'd also like to take this opportunity to publically apologize for breaking Loki._

* * *

"_To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer-"_

"-Are you awake?" Martha bumped Blaine's shoulder with hers as she whispered under her breath.

"Yes" Blaine nodded, pretending his furious blinking wasn't due to the fact that he'd just woken up from a nap in the middle of a rehearsal. "I'm here."

"You know, I was thinking..."

"Mhm?" He threw a wide eyed glance at the script on the table in front of him in an attempt to stop blinking, mind still a little foggy. It probably defeated the purpose by making it even more obvious.

"We should start a broken-hearted widows club."

He smiled around the back of the pen he was chewing on. "We should?"

"_-devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream; Aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come-"_

"I'll come over to your house with a bottle of gin and you get to pour your heart out into one of my killer Martinis. And then I pour my heart out. Probably just straight into the bottle for me..."

"Aren't I a widower, though?"

She gave him a sly look. "Do you want to be in my widows club or not?"

"I'm sorry." He chuckled under his breath. "Ok. I'd like that."

"Good."

"But, Martha?"

"Yes?"

"Can we do it at your house?"

She seemed like she was just about to protest something, probably related to having to clean up her house before she saw the look in his eye that was only there for a brief moment.

"If we must."

"_-to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns-"_

She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

"Thanks."

* * *

"Sam…?"

It was late in bed on a Thursday night. They should probably both already be sleeping.

"Yes, Blaine?"

"Why can't we stay like this forever?"

A hand found his somewhere in between the covers.

A hand to hold.

"You know it would never work. There are a million reasons why."

"I don't mind them."

"Blaine."

"Yeah?"

There was nothing in the room to see, because it was completely filled with darkness.

"You know how I'm six months older than you?"

"Yeah."

"In a year, you'll be six months older than me."

The statement was met with a silence.

"And in ten years, you'll be 38 and I'll still be 28. And in 20 years, you'll be 48 and-"

"-Ok, Ok…"

Apparently, one could understand words without really comprehending them.

He scooted a little closer, still content with lying chest to chest for the rest of his life. "Tell me about Julia…"

A warm chuckle spread a little light in the darkness of the room. "What do you want to know?"

"When do we get her?"

"In about five years."

"And are we ready?"

"Not really. But we rise to the occasion." Sam leaned his face a little closer to Blaine's, voice soft when he spoke. "She sings, too. Beautifully."

A thought ran through Blaine's mind but before he'd caught it, it had already leapt out of his mouth. "Can I still find her? And have her?"

"No, Blaine. You won't."

"Ok…" The confession saddened him for a moment, before another thought had sprung to life. "I thought you said you didn't know what would happen to me now?"

Sam bit his lip, almost as if to buy himself more time. "I don't." By now his eyes were adjusted enough to the dark to see the incredulous look on Blaine's face. "I just know some things. Ok?"

A hand to hold, and to be held.

"Ok."

* * *

The irony of the fact that Martha's home looked like a haunted house straight out of a horror movie while he was the one living with a ghost wasn't lost on him.

"-and then he got worse. And he lost his beautiful hair."

Blaine listened intently as he sat perched on a dark velvet sofa, martini glass in his hand while admiring the poise with which his boss could speak of her husband's battle and ultimate defeat with cancer.

"He probably smoked too much" she said, lighting the cigarette in her hand on which she wore at least two rings per each finger.

"Is that your engagement ring?" Blaine nodded his forehead at her left hand, referring in particular to a ring sporting a big diamond.

"Actually, no." She looked down at her hand, fingers spread as she took a drag on her cigarette with the other. "That's just a ring with a diamond. I bought it after my directorial debut, because I was upset that he wasn't there to see it and I thought something sparkling might cheer me up." Right below that ring was a plain silver band.

"This is my engagement ring." She smiled fondly at the memory. "Because we were poor as lice back then. He was very handsome you know, your man."

The confession caught him a little off guard as he stammered a reply. "Thank you."

"Very handsome. And big! How on earth were you able to reel that one in?"

"We, uhm, met in high school." Now it was Blaine's turn to fondly smile at a memory. "He probably thought I just hadn't hit my growth spurt yet, it was never a big deal. Not to say that it was easy, though."

She sighed, shaking her head from side to side. "You were just a child."

A nod. "Did you ever… meet anyone? Again?"

"Yes, Blaine. I did."

"Ok." He nodded, trying to wrap his mind around it all.

"I even got married again."

"Oh." The confession caught him by surprise. "I never knew."

She shrugged. "Probably because I never talk about it. It ended in a messy divorce and that definitely wasn't a ring I wanted to keep."

"Ok. Do you think it was, because..?-"

"No." She smiled at him with a comforting reassurance. "Because I've always been a selfish lover, and that was a match made in hell."

"Do you think you'll start dating again?"

"Oh, my sweet, innocent Blaine… What makes you think that I'm not seeing a very talented and wealthy man from Monaco right now?"

He had to laugh a little at his own foolishness, shaking his head in the process.

"Not that he needs to be wealthy. But I grew tired of the beautiful, tanned boys with nothing going on between their ears fairly quickly." She looked at him for a moment with a mischief in her eye before abruptly standing up and taking the glass out of his hand. "Follow me."

Not that he would object, but he actually felt a little scared of what she'd do if he didn't.

She took him into the next, big room. It seemed to be some kind of cross between a lounge and library but it was by the black piano shining like patent leather in front of which she sat down and put down their drinks. She patted the space on the bench besides her. "Come on, sit down."

Once again, he complied.

"Do you know this song?" she asked, as a familiar tune began to ring within the high walls.

He nodded slowly, eyes focusing on the olive slightly shaking in the clear liquid of the glass in front of him.

"Then join me. I know you play."

And so he did, when she began.

"_Loneliness is a cloak you wear. A deep shade of blue is always there."_

"_The sun ain't gonna shine anymore-"_

"-The sun ain't gonna shine anymore_."_

But the smile on her face as he sort of sing-sung the chorus with her sure did.

"_The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky. The tears are always clouding your eyes."_

"_When you're without love."_

"_Emptiness is a place you're in. With nothing to lose but no more to win."_

"_The sun ain't gonna shine anymore. The moon ain't gonna rise in the sky. The tears are always clouding your eyes."_

"_When you're without love."_

Once they'd finished playing, she grabbed their glasses from the piano and pushed Blaine's into his hand while raising her own.

"To the men we've loved-"

The sound of glass clinking together in a room full of wisdom sang like a key on the piano.

"-and the men we've lost. May they always dwell in a room in our hearts."

* * *

He'd thought of that on the way home.

A room in his heart.

But in Sam's case it was more like a room in his house.

"Did you have a good time?"

Strong arms embraced him as he stepped into the doorway.

"Mmm."

Sam pressed his mouth against the top of a secretly curly head, corners of his mouth curling into a smile. "You smell like gin and cigarettes…"

He smiled weakly in return against the soft fabric of a t-shirt. "My boss smokes like a chimney."

Raising an inquisitive eyebrow, Sam leaned back a little. "Maybe you should take a shower?"

"I was going to." Blaine objected while pretending to be offended. Then he bit his lip, taking a moment to look at the floor before an earnest attempt to catch Sam's eyes. "You can join me. If you'd like."

Taking a step back, Sam swallowed while putting his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I think I'll wait down here."

Blaine nodded, a feeling of disappointment washing over him even though he'd expected those to be his exact words. "Ok."

Two years, and he still hadn't quite figured out how to get the water to the perfect temperature. It also just happened to be an awfully steamy shower, but that part he'd never really minded because it felt good against his skin.

He also didn't mind the fact that it instantly washed away his tears.

Much like the rain.

He was just about to reach for the shampoo bottle when he heard the unmistakable creaking of the bathroom door, even over the loud stream of water. The steam had fogged up the otherwise clear glass separating himself and whoever it was that had just stepped into the room.

But who else could it possibly be.

Blaine stood under the stream of water, drops falling from his body as he stepped closer.

Then, the palm of a hand came into view through the fog and the glass from the other side.

Five long fingers.

And then another hand, right next to it. He held his breath as he stepped closer, mirroring the imprints with his own shaky hands and leaning his forehead against the wet glass before he even dared to exhale.

"Come…"

It was barely anything below a whisper.

"I know it's not for forever."

There was just no way of separating the water from the tears by now.

"But maybe it could just be. Just for tonight?"

The hands disappeared, followed by the door closing somewhere on the other side of the glass, and so he sighed in defeat.

When he steps out of the shower, he wraps a towel around his hips and opens the bathroom cabinet.

There they are. The pills, the medications.

They hadn't made him sick, because that was a lie he'd told Martha when she asked what the doctor had prescribed.

Because he lied, sometimes.

They'd made him feel nothing, mostly, so he'd figured what was the point, anyway. If anything, it might be a good idea to have a stash just in case of a rainy day.

His whole body ached for it. Ached for the touch, ached to feel something r_eal_ again. Ached to be nothing at all.

"To be, or not to be…-"

His reflection laughed mockingly at him in the mirror

"-that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles.-"

A big stash.

For a rainy day.

"-And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep. And to sleep, to say we end the heartache…"

He wondered if Sam had gone hiding, because he secretly wanted Blaine to come with him.

Into the dark, or into the light. Into the night, over hills unseen.

Out of a life and into a dream.

A fingertip danced over the print of an illegible label. Or maybe Sam had left, because he didn't care, didn't really want him any longer now that he was forever the perfect image and always would be, but Blaine would get old.

And sick.

But most likely, he thought as he shut the door to the cabinet with a horrified frown at all the thoughts running through his head, Sam had left because he simply couldn't trust himself with him. And for some reason he was convinced that if they did… something, it would convince Blaine that he could stay like that forever.

And apparently they couldn't. Apparently there were a million reasons.

So instead, he figured he'd just need to ache. Ache for the touch, ache to feel something real again.

Forever.

Ache to feel nothing at all.

_**TBC**_


	7. Chapter 7

Sam still hadn't come back after that painfully intimate moment on the other side of the glass, and if anything it had left him wanting more.

It had been a month and a half.

He missed it terribly. Missed someone other than his brother asking if he'd eaten anything, someone helping him into bed at a decent hour at night.

Someone to hold, and someone to be held. He even missed the stupid DVD menu waking him up in the middle of the night.

Every time he heard the footsteps lead upstairs they'd always stop, right outside the bedroom.

"Sam?" He would call.

And then, they'd disappear.

Strange sounds still startled him, but not out of fear any longer. Rather a glimmer of hope, a reminder of the fact that he was still there. Lurking.

Watching him.

But even though he missed him, missed him terribly, he was still growing increasingly angry.

Frustrated.

Because if he still lived in a room in Blaine's house, why couldn't he show himself again.

He told himself time and time again that he'd be happy with just one time. To feel Sam, just one time, and take away the empty void that dwelled inside him. He wouldn't expect it to be forever, wouldn't even expect them to do it again.

Just one more time.

Frustrated.

And probably a little vindictive. At least that's what he feels when he lets his hand travel downwards late at night when the city sleeps, Sam's name on his lips as they part just slightly and the hand starts moving, lazily.

"Sam…"

That's when he could feel him nearest. Every time he closed his eyes and panted into the air he could feel Sam's eyes on him, but he'd never show himself.

And Blaine could never finish.

Other times, Blaine wondered if just a good time with anyone to fill some of that void would do.

* * *

Lavish is a word he'd used to describe the party.

Usually he loved these things, but tonight there was little more than disdain in his heart. The champagne was flowing, the opening of the play had been largely successful and the trays of canapés danced around the room over the hands of handsome men.

It was probably because he had to wear a suit, but he figured there were millions of firsts he'd just have to get over and wearing a suit for the first time since the funeral shouldn't be something to whine about so profusely.

He set his empty champagne glass down on the bar, nodding to the bartender. "Refill, please."

The pop of a fresh bottle always used to stir something inside him. A promise of a good night, a wink of surprise of what may or may not happen because the night was young so had they been.

Now it just meant there'd be an awful lot of foam in his glass, probably.

"Thanks."

The bartender carefully scooted the glass over to him, a thumb barely lingering for half a second over a tense index finger, prompting Blaine to shoot the man a questioning stare.

"I get off at 3."

"Excuse me?" Blaine's jaw did an ungracious drop while his mind raced for some sort of reply, until something about the laughter ringing from the other side of the room caught his attention. He grabbed his glass while ignoring the wink from the striking bartender who looked visibly out of place in a vest and bowtie, approaching the tall figure who wasn't exactly hard to miss because he towered over most of the beautifully dressed people in the crowded room.

"Sebastian?"

The lean man's smile faltered momentarily as his eyes darted from the person he was speaking with and onto Blaine, expression extremely difficult to read for a second before the smile returned. But softer, this time.

"Blaine?" And just like that, the entire company he was entertaining was forgotten as he stepped closer to the shorter man. "Some enchanted evening, isn't it? How are you?"

Blaine shrugged, finding it hard not to mirror the other man's infectious smile for once. "I guess I'm alright." He leaned a little closer, as if to tell him a secret. "Are you… stalking me?"

The question warranted another laughter, the kind that had caught his attention from across the room in the first place. "Actually, I'm usually invited to these things, but I don't always go. And then I thought 'Hamlet, maybe that could be riddled with sexy daddy issues.'" He shrugged as well. "But I guess not."

"Alright." He tilted his head, taking a sip from his champagne. "And what was it that you do?"

"Lawyer."

"Oh."

Sebastian nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. Blaine found his smile enticing.

The anger was almost starting to subside. Perhaps because it was being replaced with something else, something that the sound of the popping of a champagne bottle used to do to him.

But the void was still there. Aching.

The taller man nodded towards the bar. "I'm just going to get a drink."

Bringing the recently filled glass to his lips, Blaine downed the expensive contents of it in one go. "Can you get me one as well?"

"Sure." Another smile, as he took the glass into his hand. "Something stronger, maybe?"

"Yeah. Sure."

It was strange, this feeling. Or whatever it was that was flowing through his body, because it might as well instead be some sort of twisted, primitive urge. And if he'd been more sober, perhaps he would have caught himself laughing a little too hard at Sebastian's jokes. Letting his hand linger a little too long on his arm.

They'd found a small balcony in the beautiful building, far away from the music and the people and the noise.

It had been two months, now. Two months since the last time he'd seen Sam, even though the other man had promised him to be waiting downstairs for him.

Blaine squinted his eyes just slightly, like you do when you're smiling and then turning a little more serious all of a sudden. "Do you want to get out of here?"

Setting his glass down on the thick stone railing, Sebastian shoved his hands into his pockets.

He seemed to be doing that a lot.

"I should probably call it a night. Lots of work tomorrow."

"Oh." It almost felt like a slap in the face, and all of a sudden the cool breeze turned colder in the air. He cleared his throat. "Ok."

Sebastian offered an apologetic smile. "I'll see you around?"

"Sure…" He nodded, a little too quickly. "Sure."

A quick hand on his shoulder, and then he was alone.

Again.

He downed the last of his drink, setting it down on the railing and looked out over a sea of city lights before giving his wrist watch a quick look.

2:55.

Without a beat, he turned around and made his way back inside to the main room. To the main bar.

Looking around, at first he couldn't find who he was looking for until a broad shouldered man raised an eyebrow in his direction from behind the bar.

He walked up to him, steps uncertain and steady at the same time.

"Is your shift over yet?"

* * *

This was new.

It had felt so right at first. But as it progressed, it just felt increasingly wrong.

For reasons unbeknownst to the other, both refused to take the other one to their own place so eventually they settled on the bartender's car parked in a dark alley. Blaine refused to kiss him on the mouth, and he didn't ask why. And when Blaine crawled onto his hands a knees after having been pretty comfortable on his back in the backseat with the other man between his legs, he hadn't said anything either.

By the time they'd started, Blaine wished he could just crawl out of the car completely.

"Could you…?"

He assumed there was no polite way of doing this, because what was he supposed to say? 'I'm sorry, but this was just a ploy to get back at the ghost of my dead boyfriend and could you stop now?' or 'I thought you might be able to fill a void but this is leaving me feeling so much worse.'

Or perhaps 'I've only ever been with one person before.'

The man thrusting behind him didn't seem to notice, anyway, so he decided not to make it awkward and just finish whatever the hell this was, pulling his pants back up the second they had.

"Hey… Let me take care of you."

"No… No, I'm good."

It came unexpected, as he'd just found his blazer on the floor of the car and was pulling it around himself as tight as he could. He looked stunned, into nothing, while he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Don't do that."

"Do what? Kiss you?"

There was no point, because who could understand the reasoning of a person slowly losing themselves into their own insanity anyway.

"Nothing, I… I've got to go."

His lips burnt.

He wondered if he'd ever smile again.

* * *

He felt as much as the wreck he probably looked like, tie hanging loose around his neck with his shirt half pulled out of his suit pants and an expensive blazer slung over his shoulder as he put the key into the door and turned the handle, just as it began to rain.

Who he saw was probably the last person he wanted to see in this moment, even if he missed him.

Missed him so.

Before Sam had usually greeted him with a warm hug as he came through the door. Now he just stood there, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans while almost avoiding looking at him. "Where have you been, Blaine? It's late."

It was too much. The anger, the void, the hurt.

The terrible ache, that was so much worse by now.

"Where have I been?" He had to blink a couple of times as he stepped closer to the other man, even though the brisk walk through the night had sobered him up a great deal. "Where have _you_ been?!"

Sam didn't say anything, but at least he didn't look away this time.

"Where have you been…?"

Again, not a word.

Blaine shook his head in disbelief as he took a step back, shortly realizing that he was being followed up the stairs and into the bathroom.

He grabbed a glass standing by the sink and waited for the water to turn cold before opening the bathroom cabinet.

But it wasn't long before a hand that didn't belong to him slammed it shut.

"Don't…."

"Oh." Blaine laughed with a humorless sound. "Now he speaks."

"I know what you're doing."

Another attempt to open the cabinet.

The same hand slamming it shut.

"Just… leave me alone."

It was with a shake of his head that Sam answered this time, over Blaine's shoulder in the reflection of the mirror. "You're not going to do this. I'm not letting you."

"Get out." Blaine turned around to face him. "Get. Out."

There were pills in there. For a rainy day.

"Get out."

Sam just shook his head again, and that was when Blaine finally lost it.

Fists hammered onto a broad chest, pushing with all of his force towards the door and somehow, Blaine was actually overpowering him. Or perhaps Sam was just letting himself being pushed away.

Blaine slammed the door in his face, making sure to quickly lock the it before he backed up towards the sink and finally, turned around.

The rain was coming down hard outside.

With a shaky hand, he reached inside the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of pills, inspecting the label carefully before pouring a fistful into the palm of his hand.

And so he stood there, contemplating on being and not being. Living, or not living. He wondered what would happen to him, because Sam hadn't really explained to him what happens when you die. Maybe it was different when you go on your own.

He wondered if they could be in heaven together, and if they'd be able to build a house just like this one up there.

He told himself that he would definitely come back and haunt Martha, because her house full of books and mystery and dark corners was perfect for it.

And then, just barely, he smiled to himself.

A sweaty hand loosening its grip on dozens of little pills, falling through his fingers into the sink while some were still stuck on the sticky palm of his hand. Because apparently, even though it was the last thing he felt like doing in that moment and no matter how badly his lips burnt, he still had the ability to smile.

* * *

It had taken a while, before he even dared to exit the bathroom and when he did he just collapsed curled on his side onto the big bed, still in his suit and tie minus the blazer and shoes.

And then, finally, the prickle of tears started to irritate his tired eyes.

He spoke even before he could feel the presence in the room, voice weaker than before. Broken, almost.

"I did something bad, Sam."

"Shh, it's Ok."

A heavy arm fell over his waist as a tall, comforting body pressed itself against his back.

From the sound of his voice as he began to hum a melody, Blaine could tell that he had tears in his eyes, too.

"_Oh, my love. My darling. I've hungered for your touch, a long lonely time."_

"_And time goes by so slowly. And time can do so much. Are you still mine?"_

"_Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea. To the open arms of the sea."_

"_Lonely rivers sigh 'wait for me', wait for me. I'll be coming home, wait for me."_

Blaine laid there, listening to a voice that he loved the most and blissfully ignoring the fact that there wasn't a heartbeat pounding somewhere against his back between his shoulder blades.

"_Oh, my love. My darling. I've hungered for your touch, a long lonely time."_

"_And time goes by so slowly. And time can do so much. Are you still mine?"_

Ignoring the fact that Blaine was living on borrowed time.

Ignoring the fact that Sam wasn't even living, at all.

_**TBC**_


	8. Chapter 8

_Notes:__ So... This chapter has actually been almost finished for a while, but it was difficult to both find the time and strength to get back to this sory. I am, however, now definitely set on finishing it and it's been finished in my head since before I started writing._

_To answer a question a couple of readers have asked me, Yes, I lost someone very close to me very recently and this started off as a way of dealing with my grief as well as the concept of death. They were far, far too young to go, and left someone behind as well as three beautiful children. The person they left behind was my sister, and the recent devestating news of Cory's passing and Lea's situation hit really close to home and was almost identical, minus the children they never got to have together. _

_They both died, hopefully peacefully, in their sleep._

_I'm picking this up again because if I don't take the bull by the horns now, I don't know if I will._

I'd like to dedicate this story to my brother in law and to Cory, as well as Lea and my beautiful sister. 

_As Sam said in an earlier chapter, time heals. I never understood this concept until very, very recently. But now I do, and I feel comfort in the fact that I know it to be true._

_Somewhere inside, we'll always be together._

* * *

Thank god for Cooper.

For hadn't he been there, Blaine would probably have had to hire someone to have gone through all of the paperwork, check his mail every day and apply for whatever insurance he may or may not have been eligible for because in the beginning, there was just no way he could have dealt with all of that. A couple of weeks following the accident, Blaine had announced that he was ready to regain at least some control of his life again, even if it was just paperwork.

It was almost with a look of warning and definite uncertainty that Cooper let him, saying something about how there still was a lot of work to do and to make sure to talk to him, if he needed anything.

Still, it came as a bit of a shock when Blaine was taking in the mail one day, noting a big envelope with a label about something to do with property plastered on it.

The house.

He rushed back inside, tossing the rest of the mail onto the kitchen counter while his heart was seriously threatening to jump right out of his chest, reminding himself that he should probably sit himself down before opening it.

He tore the envelope ungracefully, not caring if the paper would get damaged in the process or not because suddenly it wasn't just about paperwork any longer.

This was apparently not their house. Not anymore. It wasn't even Blaine's.

Or, to be specific, technically half of the house still belonged to him.

The other one was now the property of Mary and Dwight Evans.

He dropped the document on the table, scooting the kitchen chair back as a suddenly sweaty hand ran through his hair.

Acting faster than he would have expected, a quick google using the information he already had on his search target proved successful within just a couple of minutes. He took a deep breath in an attempt to collect himself before dialing the number on the phone in his shaking hand.

"_Smythe, how can I help you?"_

"Sebastian?" He winced at the sound of his unsteady voice, hating how it was coming across at the moment.

"_Blaine?"_

A deep breath.

"I think I need a lawyer."

* * *

He was wearing one of Sam's t-shirts, visibly too large on his smaller frame which was something he usually didn't do in the company of others. But right now he didn't really care.

"Are you on good terms with his parents?" Sebastian looked up at him from what he was reading over the rim of his thick, black frames.

"Yes." He was playing with the hem of the t-shirt, anxiously looking at the documents scattered over the table even though from his view they were all upside down.

"Unfortunately, this happens all the time when you haven't taken the correct precautions into consideration." Sighing, Sebastian took the glasses off his face and rubbed a weary hand against his strained forehead. "In the eyes of the law, you were technically just roommates. So in the case of any lacking legal spouses or children, first come the parents and then any siblings he may or may not have."

"Ok…"

"Now luckily for you, I deal with these things all the time so it's very possible that Mr. and Mrs. Evans could transfer their share of the deeds to the property to you if they chose to do so. It won't be easy, but it's possible."

Blaine nodded into nothing, trying to take a deep breath as he was processing the information. "I can't leave this house…"

"Blaine, whatever happens you're most likely going to be staying here for as long as you want, seeing as half of it belongs to you and according to the information I've been able to process there's a clause stating that they can't sell their share to a third party without you being on board to sell as well. We'll need a real estate attorney and once we take it from there it's a pretty standard procedure." Long fingers started to make the documents into neater piles on the dining table. "Should I try to call them now?"

He nodded again, but at Sebastian instead of nothing this time as he dug out his phone and scrolled through his contacts before showing the number to Sebastian, who in turn typed it into his phone.

"Mrs. Evans?" He up stood from the chair and made his way over to the kitchen counter, leaning his tall frame against it. "Hi, I'm Sebastian Smythe and I'm calling on behalf of my client Blaine Devon Anderson."

Blaine sort of tuned out after that, slightly amused that someone had just referred to him by his middle name. The hem of the oversized t-shirt was almost pealing by now, the knuckles on his hand turning white from the strained activity of trying to keep his hands occupied.

"Alright…. Very good. Thank you, and have a good day now." Sebastian hung up the phone, staring at the small screen for a second before averting his eyes back to the anxiously waiting Blaine.

A wink. "Seems like you'll be staying here for a while."

"Oh my god…" Burying his face in his hands, Blaine sighed in relief before looking up at the lawyer standing in his kitchen. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

It almost looked as if Sebastian had blushed there for about half a second. "Any somewhat qualified lawyer could have helped you with this."

"But you did." Standing up from his chair, Blaine walked up to a kitchen drawer right next to Sebastian, proceeding to pull out a checkbook. "What do I owe you?"

Sebastian sort of huffed in response. "You don't owe me anything."

"But-"

"-Don't worry about it." The taller man smiled at him, putting his hand over Blaine's in an attempt to stop the pen from writing out the check in his name. "Honestly."

"Ok…" Blaine stilled the pen, looking down at Sebastian's hand covering his for a second before the other man pulled it back again. "Ok."

Now that the relief had started to settle in a bit, Blaine was able to actually process his surroundings a little more carefully.

The last time he'd seen Sebastian, he'd been wearing a sharp suit and seemed, at least to the rest of the world, pretty put together. At least until he'd left the party. Now, he felt like a nervous wreck draped in a threadbare oversized t-shirt that used to belong to his dead boyfriend.

Sebastian cleared his throat, as if he was getting ready to say something. "So, are you doing Ok? I mean, disregarding this thing…-"

"-Yep. I'm good."

The taller man looked like he believed him, nodding along to the quick reply while seeming like there was something dying to escape his mouth. "Blaine… I'm sorry about last time."

Knowing exactly what he was referring to, Blaine decided to simply nod while looking down at the floor. It felt a little something like shame and humiliation, so he tried not to listen too closely in hopes of it passing sooner than later.

"I've just had to, you know, take a real look at myself and my choices lately and it's not that I didn't want to."

Another nod. But he was listening, now.

"It's just… I really liked Sam but the way he talked about you made you seem so… amazing. And then I saw you and I promised myself that I would get you, no matter what it took because I'm like that, and I always want what I can't have and then I take it, anyway." He shrugged, expression very close to the one on Blaine's face as he'd started talking. "Or, at least I used to. But I'm trying to change."

Blaine looked up now, only to find that Sebastian now staring down at his shoes.

"So I guess, if anything, Sam has taught me how to be a better man."

Before the sting behind his eyes had a chance to escape, Blaine walked towards the fridge and proceeded to pull out two bottles of beer, one of which he pressed into Sebastian's hand. "A toast?"

"I'm actually still on the clock…" The taller man looked at the bottle in his hand with an apprehensiveness that easily could have gone unnoticed.

"Since when has that ever stopped a lawyer from having a drink? Like, ever?" Blaine hoped the forced cheerfulness soon would transition into something real if he tried hard enough. Twisting the cap on his bottle, the delighted look on his face as Sebastian did the same at least felt somewhat genuine. He raised his bottle. "To you. For helping me out."

"It was nothing."

Over the course of the early evening, one beer turned into two. A little bit later, two beers turned into a bunch of empty bottles sitting by the kitchen sink.

Without giving it much thought, Blaine had put on a CD with Sam's favorite crooners that probably dated back to their high school dates and was usually reserved for summer nights and red wine. He learned that Sebastian's office was within walking distance from his house, which was probably why they had bumped into each other at the bar that one night more than a year ago. He also learned that the other man also didn't have a clue of Sam's celebrity client had been but knew of his existence, and had spent the last hour and a half sprawled on the couch trying to piece together the bits information they had on the case.

Blaine twisted the cap on a fresh bottle. "Last thing I heard his fiancée was pregnant, and he wasn't the father. But supposedly that's not the story they're going to sell."

Shaking his head, Sebastian lowered his gaze towards the floor before looking back up into nothing and finishing the last of his beer. "I should probably watch a bit more E! if we're ever going to get to the bottom of this." Setting the bottle aside on the coffee table, he stood from the couch and stretched his back. "I should probably call it a night."

Blaine nodded, setting his bottle aside as well. "Ok." Standing up, he walked Sebastian to the door who in turned shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his pants as he turned around in the hallway. "I'll move it along with Mr. and Mrs. Evans and keep you in the loop, alright?"

Another nod.

"Ok. Take care, Blaine. Good night."

"Good night, Sebastian."

As the door closed, Frank Sinatra had just finished singing about how _there's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil_ over the speakers before everything went quiet, prompting Blaine to assume that the CD had finished playing as he reached for his still not finished beer from the coffee table.

That was, until Bobby Darin's voice softly began to fill the sudden emptiness of the room.

"_Somewhere beyond the sea. Somewhere waiting for me."_

"_My lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailing."_

"_Somewhere beyond the sea, she's there waiting for me."_

"_If I could fly like birds on high then straight to her arms, I'd go sailing."_

Putting the bottle aside once more, he sank back into the couch as the words started to form on his lips along with the music.

"_It's far beyond the stars, it's near beyond the moon. I know without a doubt my heart will lead me there soon."_

"_We'll meet beyond the shore, we'll kiss just as before."_

"_Happy we'll be beyond the sea, and never again I'll go sailing."_

In college, they'd spent a couple of years apart due to conflicting courses of study. But still, the entire time they'd been together.

Blaine still remembered each and every sappy goodbye after a holiday or long weekend.

"I don't want you to leave." He'd said as he watched Sam's back who was packing his bag, from the small bed in his dorm room on which they'd just spent three unforgettable nights so very close together.

"You'll visit me in a month" Sam countered, before zipping up his suitcase and walking over to the young man on the bed. "Close your eyes." He'd said as he kissed him, sneaking his iPod out of his pocket and placing the earplugs in Blaine's ears.

"_I know without a doubt my heart will lead me there soon."_

"_We'll meet beyond the shore, we'll kiss just as before."_

"_Happy we'll be beyond the sea, and never again I'll go sailing."_

"_No more sailing."_

"_So long sailing."_

"_Bye bye sailing…"_

A big hand fell on his where it was resting on his thigh, long fingers entwining with his own.

"He's going to break your heart."

Blaine didn't need to open his eyes in order to figure out who was speaking. "Who?"

"Sebastian."

A tear fell down his cheek as he shook his head, leaning it against the strong shoulder to his side. "I miss you so much…"

"I miss you too, Blaine."

As the words fell out of his mouth, it was as if he understood how true they were for the first time even though he'd said them over and over again in his head so many times. "I feel so empty."

A silence fell over the room as the CD finally came to an end, Sam's hand rubbing lazy circles into Blaine's scalp who was practically lying with his head in the other man's lap, sleep not too terribly far away.

"Blaine…"

"Mm?"

When he spoke again, his words were little whispers floating somewhere above Blaine's tired head. "I'm going to have to leave soon…"

"When?"

"Soon."

"Will you come back?"

The gentle shook of a head felt like an earthquake. "No… I won't."

Blaine didn't mind not knowing if he was already sleeping or not, because of the possibility that Sam's words were just fractions of a very bad dream. "Why?"

The taller man leaned a little closer, stroking his hand over Blaine's trembling cheek. "Because I'm not supposed to be here. But I'll stay. At least a couple of days."

"Sam?"

"Yeah."

"You do know what happens to me, don't you?"

And only when you know a person inside and out for almost half of your life, can you let a silence speak for itself.

"Tell me... What's going to happen to me?"

"I can't, Blaine."

"Will we meet soon again?"

"You mean, are you going to die once I'm gone?"

Blaine nodded as his heavy head rested on Sam's lap.

"No, Blaine. You'll live."

_**TBC**_


	9. Chapter 9

It wasn't exactly clear what he'd meant.

"_I'm going to have to leave soon…"_

Because it had been another two months without him.

Sometimes Blaine found himself laughing at something, that something usually being something Sebastian had just said and for a couple of seconds he'd almost forget.

Almost.

His heart would feel light, and then it would be heavy again. And then, he'd need to remind himself of why that unbearable lump was weighing his heart down in the first place, and then the smile would falter ever so slightly that the person speaking to him might not even notice.

Although Cooper did, most of the time. Like that time his friend was playing a gig at some venue and he'd asked Blaine if he want to come and Blaine had said "I'll need two tickets."

"Oh, Ok." Cooper replied. "Want to bring a friend?"

"Well, Sam probably wants to come."

An awkward pause. And then "Blaine…"

And then Blaine had hung up.

Obviously, he'd called back 20 minutes later once he'd stopped hyperventilating to apologize.

But still.

Most of the time, things were the opposite of still.

He wasn't sure if Sam was watching him sleep, anymore.

* * *

"I'm still not quite sure why you agreed to come, I told you it would be the biggest snooze fest of the century."

"I didn't think it would be that bad…" Blaine threw his blazer over the back of one of his kitchen chairs upon returning home from some kind of lawyer function, watching Sebastian as he did the same thing. "So. Beer." Reaching for the fridge, he proceeded to pull out two bottles and handing one over to the taller man standing in his kitchen.

"Thanks, by the way. For coming." Sebastian twisted the cap off the head of the bottle, something looking like a shy smile facing the direction of the floor pulling at the corners of his mouth as he did. "And, you know, for the beer."

Blaine shrugged his shoulders in response, already pretty buzzed from the red wine that had accompanied the underwhelming dinner function. "No problem. It's not like I had anything better to do, like stapling my tongue to my desk or anything like that."

"Shut up…" A playful shove meant to merely startle the shorter man had apparently been miscalculated as Sebastian underestimated his own drunken strength, and resulted in Blaine stumbling backwards into the kitchen island and spilling beer all over his shirt. "Fuck… Shit, I'm so sorry…-"

"-…It's fine, it's just a shirt.-"

"I'm such an idiot, let me help-"

It took a good half minute until Sebastian even registered the almost uncontrollable laughter rolling from Blaine's mouth as he fumbled with the top buttons on his shirt. Shortly, Sebastian caught on as they both worked on getting the shirt off.

Blaine wiped the last amber colored drops sprinkled over his collar bone with the probably ruined shirt, both of their laughter slowly subsiding and turning into the sound of two people not even trying to compose themselves while catching their breaths.

"Here…" Without much thinking, Sebastian took the bundled up shirt from Blaine's hand and proceeded to keep dabbing it along his chest. "Let me help you with that…"

For once, it was still again.

Still, if you ignored the almost panting of breaths trying to catch themselves once more.

The vibrations in the air between them, as two faces drew closer. The earthquake shaking the foundations of the house, as a damp shirt fell onto the floor.

A tornado swirling in his chest, at the flutter of a heart that allowed itself to almost feel light for a change, as two sets of lips touched softly, tasting of red wine and beer.

A rapture as the sheets on an otherwise usually neatly made bed creased, hands desperately alternating between almost clawing at them and the shoulders of a tall, lean man with disheveled hair and eyes that were kind.

The storm resulting from the sting of almost tears in eyes trying to make them disappear into the pillow they were facing, not because he was sad but rather because he realized that he could actually enjoy this, again.

Realizing that the sting of a stolen kiss in some stranger's car had successfully been washed away and replaced with something that didn't hurt, not even a little bit.

So, still. Basically.

Or everything but.

* * *

It felt a lot like a hangover.

Or maybe waking up at a hospital after having crashed your car into a concrete wall.

Blaine blinked a couple of times at the distracting rays of sun peeking through the half open curtains, registering the fact that it was morning as well as the presence of a warm body next to his own.

The flashes of memories crashing louder than thunder sweeping through his mind of what had happened on top of these very same sheets the night before resulted in a sense of panic usually reserved for movie scenes in which the apocalypse has just gone down.

A panic almost comparable to the one that came just three seconds after, as he saw the face of a person standing right next to the bed, with his arms crossed over his chest.

A face he hadn't seen in two months.

"Him, Blaine? _Really_?"

"Fuck…" Blaine threw a quick glance at the sleeping figure of Sebastian before collecting himself on top of the covers and jumping off the bed, grabbing onto Sam's arm and dragging him into the bathroom. "You have to go…!"

Even though it seemed downright amused, the look on Sam's face was still difficult to read. "Let me guess, so that you can do _that_ again…-"

"-No, Sam… So that nobody needs a reason to have me sectioned into some kind of mental institution…" With just about enough willpower, Blaine succeeded in not letting the tears well up in his eyes. "Sam, wh… Why are you here? Now?"

The amused look on his face was slowly almost turning into something else. "Do you really want me to leave?"

"No..!" He had to remind himself to keep his voice down. "I just… you're the one who keeps leaving and then showing up out of the blue and I… I thought…"

"You thought what?"

Somewhere in the shatters of his brain, Blaine was able to collect a thought he'd been too scared to fully think before. "I thought… that you'd left. You said you were going to leave."

"I wasn't ready…"

The guilt and the shame finally caught up with him as he felt his feet back him up against the closed door, to slowly slide down and land on top of the cold floor. "I'm sorry, Sam… I'm so, so sorry…-"

"Shh…"

The presence felt warm, even though the arms embracing him did not.

"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to be happy."

"I thought you were gone."

They just sat there on the floor for a while, like two people, until finally Sam spoke.

"I wanted to come to say good bye…"

The knock on the door shook Blaine out of the daze he was in as he quickly tried to compose himself on the bathroom floor, wincing at the sound of the voice coming from the other side.

"Everything alright, Blaine..?"

"Yeah… I'll be right there."

When he looked to his side, Sam wasn't there anymore.

"Are you Ok?" Sebastian seemed a little nervous in his newly awake state as he moved to the side to let Blaine pass him in the doorway, once the shorter man had finally come out. "You look as if you just saw a ghost or something."

"I'm... I'm fine."

The jerking twist of his arm as he pulled himself free from Sebastian's fingers innocently trying to hold his wrist, however, begged to differ.

"Ok, ok…" The taller man nodded to himself. "Blaine, I'm sorry if I overstepped some boundaries because it's pretty clear that I may have-"

"-You didn't overstep anything." Blaine almost frowned at the speculation, feeling a little sick at the notion of someone looking at and thinking of him as someone who'd just been used.

Sebastian sighed, fingers of a rejected hand trying to rub some sort of order into an uncombed head of hair. "I think I should probably go."

"Maybe you should…" Blaine hadn't meant to sound so mean.

But he was too tired to take it back.

* * *

So still.

The rest of the entire day was just as eternal as it was over already.

For some reason Blaine hadn't bothered to turn many lights on in the house as the evening progressed, and it was dark in almost every room as he sat on the couch in the living room, patiently waiting for something he was hoping to happen.

When he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, he knew that it had.

Sam leaned against the doorframe for a moment, before stepping into the room and hunching down by Blaine's knees. A strong hand shook a tired leg, as a face pretending not to be sad offered a broken smile.

"How are you, B?"

Blaine let his hand cover the one resting on his leg. "Not too great."

Sam nodded, taking a deep breath before mustering up the strength to say the next part. "I have to leave. Tonight."

"Ok…" The shaky breath sounded a lot like a shudder. "I was afraid you'd say that."

The taller man leaned closer, eyes shut to leave a kiss on Blaine's soft, tearstained lips. But Blaine just turned away, swallowing hard as Sam's lips were instead left to simply graze against his cheek.

"Blaine…?"

"Mm."

"Can I keep my guitar? If it's ok, with you…"

The confusion painted on the shorter man's face was visible even in the darkness of the room. When he spoke, his voice barely made a sound. "Will you need it where you're going?"

"Yeah. I will."

"Ok…" Blaine used the sleeve of Sam's oversized hoodie he was wearing to wipe his eyes. "Ok. Keep it."

"Thank you.-"

"-If you're leaving…" Blaine barely gave the other man a chance to finish his sentence. "I think I'll go into the bedroom or something. So I don't have to see it." Standing up, he made a second attempt at wiping his eyes even though all it resulted in was a tearstained sleeve. "So… Goodbye."

"Are you sure you want it this way?"

He turned his back towards him, because the sound of his voice alone was enough to break his heart into a million little pieces.

"Bye, Sam." As he walked up the stairs, he didn't even look back.

Because he couldn't .

* * *

It took about 30 seconds of staring at an empty, unmade bed in order for him to realize the extent of the mistake he'd just made. Another 10, maybe, to get down the stairs.

By 20, he was out of the door.

"Sam!"

He wasn't sure at what point the rain had started to trickle down from the dark sky, but he probably wouldn't even had acknowledged its presence if it weren't for the fact that the cold asphalt felt wet underneath his naked feet.

"Sam! Come back, please…"

He'd never seen him outside of their house before. Maybe because outside of it, he didn't exist.

Just like he very possibly had never existed outside the realm of Blaine's aching head.

But there, somewhere down the dark road of houses with their doors and windows shut, walked a tall young man with torn sneakers and a guitar flung over his shoulder.

"Sam…!"

And then he stopped and turned around, allowing Blaine to catch up with maybe just a minute of all those years they'd now never get to share.

Setting the instrument down on the ground, he immediately opened his arms as the shorter man crashed into his chest whose desperation haunted his each and every cell.

"I can't let you go.."

"I have to tell you something, Blaine…"

Blaine pulled himself impossibly close, burying his face in Sam's tearstained t-shirt.

"You know, I said that he's going to break your heart."

Just the mention of the person he'd practically kicked out of his house that very morning didn't do much to heal the gushing wound in his heart.

"He will… But he's going to piece it together again, if you let him."

"I can't, Sam…"

The strong arms held on impossibly tight as something in Sam's voice broke. "Listen to me… he's going to fix it, and you have to let him. Nothing is ever easy, and I know you don't believe me now when I say it but you'll be so happy again. One day."

"I feel like I'm going to die."

"But you won't, Blaine. You won't."

It was almost as if the sky above them had cracked open, the pouring rain and angry wind almost deafening the ears that just didn't want to hear, any longer.

But they still heard those lips right above his ear as they spoke. "And I'll be up there. Always…"

"Always?"

"Yeah. With the planets and the moons and the clouds. Like a star, or something."

"I love you , Sam…"

"I love you too. And I always will." Setting a hand down on a rain soaked shoulder, Sam slowly bent to the side to scoop up the guitar in his arms. "I want you to sing with me. Just one more time." A hand strummed down the six strings of an old guitar bought so many years ago from the yard of someone else's house.

"Sam…"

"_If I laugh, just a little bit…"_

And even though it probably was they very last thing in the world that he felt like doing, Blaine's lips started moving as Sam's proceeded to barely form the words voicelessly along.

"_Maybe I can forget the chance that I didn't have..." _

"_To know you. And be, at peace. At peace."_

"_If I laugh, just a little bit. Maybe I can forget the plans that I didn't use to get you."_

"_At home. With me."_

"_Alone."_

The rain was still coming down. But not as hard, as just before.

Sam stepped closer, drops falling down on top of shiny, old wood as it played clearer than the sunshine on a sunny day.

"_If I laugh, just a little bit. Maybe I can recall the way that I used to be."_

"_Before you."_

"_And sleep, at night. At night."_

"_If I laugh, just a little bit."_

"_Maybe I can recall the love that I should have had, with you."_

"_And sleep, at night. And dream."_

Eventually, the music began to fade. Just like everything does.

"You will. Dream, I mean."

"Ok.." Blaine nodded, wanting to believe those words so badly it almost hurt above everything else.

Once again, Sam put his arms around him. "You have to go back inside… You're gonna get sick out here."

"I don't care.-"

"-I care. And I know tons of people who do… And it's ok to laugh. I want you to do it, a lot. Will you try, for me?"

Not able to trust himself to speak, Blaine just nodded into the heavy chest.

"You have to go back inside, now…"

"Why..?"

"Because, honey…." Sam leaned closer again, trying not to speak too loud as his words fell right above Blaine's tortured ear. "You're not wearing any shoes…"

The noise escaping the shorter man's throat sounded like a mix between a sob and laughter.

"Somewhere… beyond the sea. Somewhere, waiting for me. My lover stands on golden sands…. And watches the ships, that go sailing…"

"Sam…"

"You're the love of my life, Blaine. And it was the best life one could have ever asked for. Go home, now…"

"I love you."

Sam smiled at him, putting his hands on the shorter man's shoulder as the distance grew between them. "Go home…."

Blaine closed his eyes, just about to put his arms ever tighter around the strong waist when Sam took another step back, setting the guitar back over his shoulder. He smiled at him again, and then he winked. "Because now I have to go home, myself."

"Ok…"

Sam took a couple of steps backwards, the encouraging nod he tried on almost working. And then he turned around.

The road was only as long as the eye could see.

And then, the eye couldn't see, any longer.

_**TBC**_


	10. Chapter 10

_Notes: __The Final Chapter has arrived! I want to thank all the readers from the bottom of my heart, and I hope the last installment doesn't disappoint. I know it's been an emotional ride and you're all amazing for taking this journey with me. Much love!_

* * *

_Is it Ok if I call you mine?_

_Just for a time._

_And I will be just fine, if I know that you know that I'm wanting, needing your love._

_If I ask of you, is it alright?_

_If I ask you to hold me tight, through a cold, dark night._

'_Cause there may be a cloudy day in sight._

_And I need to let you know that I might be needing your love._

"I think this is my favorite film."

Blaine throws Sam a sideways glance from his half-lying position on the couch. "Fame is your favorite film?"

They are 17 years old, watching a movie in the living room of Blaine's parent's house.

Sam leans against the other boy on the couch, leaving a trail of kisses down his neck. "Is that weird?"

"I just thought…" The soft mouth on top of his skin feels good enough to make him forget the words. "Your favorite film would be X-Men related, or something…."

Every day feels like a perfect day.

Because every day everything still feels so new and exciting.

"You should be someone who makes musicals, Blaine…"

The enthusiastic statement catches him a little off guard, prompting him to laugh nervously. "It's not just something that you make, Sam…" A kiss shuts him up.

"That's what I think, anyway."

"Uh huh… And what do you want to be..?"

"A rock star, obviously."

Blaine laughs again, but it's not nervous this time. "You'll always be my rock star, if you want."

"I think that's exactly what I want."

Blaine doesn't really doubt it, because even though he usually doesn't admit it to his face, a singing Sam is one of the best things he knows in the entire universe.

He bought him a present at a yard sale earlier that day, and it isn't much but it's waiting underneath his bed and he hopes it'll make Sam happy.

"When are your parents back?" Sam lifts a suggestive eyebrow in his direction while he's not too busy letting his hands sneak in under Blaine's shirt, fingers trailing the prickled skin hiding underneath it.

"Later…"

"Perfect. Then we have all the time in the world…"

_And what I'm trying to say isn't really new._

_It's just the things that happen to me when I'm reminded of you._

_Like when I hear your name._

_Or see a place that you've been, or see a picture of your grin._

_Or pass a house that you've been in, at one time or another._

_It sets off something in me that I can't explain._

_And I can't wait to see you again._

_Oh, babe I love your love._

* * *

"Blaine?"

He is a little fuzzy on how it happened.

But at some point or another in the night, he managed to find his way back to the front porch of his house.

"What happened to your shoes?" The wrinkles on Sebastian's forehead were twisted into some kind of sad concern as he stood up from his sitting position on the first step.

"I…" Blaine turned his head towards the long road, a tired finger just pointing down the never ending pavement down which one could walk and then just not return. "Wh... How long have you been here for?"

The taller man ran a shaky hand through his hair, looking down at his shoes for a second only to let his eyes dart back to Blaine's lacking ones. "I felt weird about this morning, just wanted to clear the air. But then you didn't answer your phone and you seemed so out of it that, I guess I got worried. Are you alright?"

A shrug. Blaine could feel the desperation in his eyes because in Sebastian's it was met with an equal amount of concern.

"Do you need help?"

He was about to protest, but instead of shaking his head like he expected himself to, he heard his own mouth voice the word "Maybe."

Shrugging the blazer off his shoulders, Sebastian put it around Blaine's cold, soaked ones. "Let's go inside."

Once Blaine was seated on the couch and the door to the outside world securely locked, Sebastian disappeared upstairs only to return seconds later with a fresh t-shirt and a towel.

Blaine pulled the soaked, cold fabric off his body and proceeded to wipe himself somewhat dry before putting on the offered t-shirt, to finally feel the warmth of a blanket wrapped over his slumped shoulders.

"Should I make you some coffee or something? Are you hungry?"

"Just some water would be great. Thanks."

It almost felt like slowly waking up from a psychosis, Blaine managing to take in more and more of his surroundings by every second that passes once he'd sat down and had two careful sips of water. When Sebastian sits down, there is a respectful distance between them on the couch.

"Tell me if you want me to leave, Ok? I'm sure your brother would be right over.-"

"-It's fine… I'm fine."

"Ok."

Once Blaine was almost sure that his head had safely returned to his shoulders he took a deep breath, setting a no longer trembling hand down on the long leg of the person sitting next to him. "I'd like it if you stayed."

"I'll stay." Sebastian looked down tentatively at the hand on his lap before continuing. "Want to sleep?"

"Yeah…" Nodding to himself as he carefully rose to his feet, Blaine grabbed onto the much warmer hand of the person standing beside him. "I think we should just sleep. For a while."

On the wall of the living room, upon the white paint a guitar was missing.

Upstairs, when Blaine opened the bathroom cabinet to take out his toothbrush he noticed that apparently his bottles of pills were missing, too.

But he never asked Sebastian where they'd gone.

Sort of like how Sebastian never asked what Blaine had been doing outside in a rainstorm without shoes, in the middle of a cold, dark night.

It is the first in a row of many nights, in which they simply share sleep together before their lips actually touch, again.

* * *

It turns out that Sebastian does break his heart.

It also turns out that he puts it together again, too.

It's not easy for two people, one having spent their whole life so far with one person and the other never having spent any part of their life with someone before. And maybe it's because the odds are stacked against them that at some point down the line, they simply decide to try harder.

They never have any children, but it's not necessarily something that they want to have together, anyway. Or rather, Sebastian doesn't necessarily want any.

Blaine wouldn't really have minded.

Something that they do do is travel. All over the world, but especially France because it was the country Blaine had always wanted to see, and Sebastian has family in Paris.

It's the most romantic city Blaine has ever seen.

Sebastian's mother is crazy and amazing, and reminds him a little bit of Martha but a more elegant, French version of her. When Martha passes away, Blaine takes comfort in the fact that he feels her spirit every time he's with Mrs. Smythe.

"I think I love you more than I love my son."

Sebastian tries to signal with his eyes that he's not down with what she'd just said. "I'm right here, mother."

Blaine just laughs, taking a croissant from the plate she's just offered him.

They buy a new house, partly because Blaine reasons that his was the perfect home for the other life he could have had but not necessarily this one, and because Sebastian feels that he'd never be able to compete with living up to anything that Sam was if he'd always have to walk in his footsteps.

Sebastian is an excellent lawyer, running his own firm just a couple of years after they've bought their house together.

And Blaine becomes an acclaimed director.

Sometimes he thinks back on the worst year of his life.

Sebastian never holds Blaine's potential underlying insanity against him, because he never sees a sign of it again and thereby will forever be the only ever witness to it. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't keep an extra eye open, when nights are cold and dark and the rain unforgiving.

Blaine doesn't quite know what to think of how Sam used to visit him, for the first couple of years.

But eventually, he writes it off as some sort of long-spanned, highly functioning psychosis that he miraculously was able to pull himself out of without any further assistance. Maybe alcohol could have played a part in it, too.

Years go by. Many years.

But he never, ever tells a soul about it. Because he'd never know how to explain it.

Another thing he's never able to explain, is what ever happened to Sam's old guitar.

* * *

"_Will you make it to dinner tonight?"_

"I'll try… but we're still holding auditions until seven."

"_I'll pick something up on my way home from work."_

"Great, yeah. Thanks. Listen, I need to get back now.-"

"_-Don't let me keep you away."_

"See you later."

"_Love you, killer."_

"I love you too."

It had been a long day already, by the time Blaine hung up the phone.

It's not his first show, more like fifth or sixth, but for some reason this production of _Fame_ is managing to cause him far too many sleepless nights and dinnerless evenings.

"Next."

Blaine sits in the middle of the narrow table in front of the dark stage, casting director to his left and assistant to his right.

A girl walks in from behind the shadows of the stage, a numbered sheet of paper pinned to her purple t-shirt.

"So, 56…" Blaine flips through a stack of papers lying on the desk in front of him after setting his cellphone to vibrate. "Tell us about yourself."

She looks a little nervous, black hair pulled into a messy bun on the top of her head. "I'm a dancer. But I sing, too, so I thought _'Fame… why not?'_"

"And today you will be auditioning for the role of Coco, correct?"

"Yes. Correct."

At some point while she was talking, her slender arms have been brought up to her hair and released a head of long, black curls that she shakes loose with a slight headshake.

It catches Blaine a little bit off guard. "Um, Ok.. What will you be singing for us today?"

"I Sing the Body Electric."

The record starts playing in the background, the sound of a beautiful symphony filling every corner of the room.

"Sorry… What was your name, before we begin?" The people sitting in front of the narrow desk get their pens and notebooks ready.

"My name is Julia."

And then, one of the most beautiful voices he'd ever heard, possibly comparable to only one began to sing.

"_I sing the body electric."_

"_I celebrate the me yet to come."_

"_I toast to my own reunion, when I become one with the sun."_

"_And I'll look back on Venus, I'll look back on Mars."_

"_And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars."_

"_And in time, and in time we will all be stars."_

A lump was stuck somewhere in his throat.

Behind his eye, a tear was tempted to fall.

"_I sing the body electric."_

"_I glory in the glow of rebirth."_

"_Creating my own tomorrow when I shall embody the earth."_

"_And I'll serenade Venus, I'll serenade Mars."_

"_And I'll burn with the fire of ten million stars."_

"_And in time, and in time we will all be stars."_

By the time the music had been over for a good couple of seconds, the people in the room were almost waiting for Blaine to say something.

"I… That was really good." He tried to make the wiping of an eye with the back of the sleeve on his shirt as discrete as possible, pretending to be jotting down some important notes on the paper in front of him. "Where were you from, again?"

"Brazil, originally. But, I'm adopted and grew up in Boston."

"Ok." He cleared his throat, hoping that no one was noticing the almost meltdown he was in. "We'll be in touch. Thank you."

She had approached the desk to fill out her contact sheet that Blaine's assistant had prompted her to do.

"Julia?"

"Yeah?"

The words were stuck in his throat, most likely due to that insistent, almost choking lump.

"Did you want to ask me something, Mr. Anderson?"

"I…" He scratched his head in an attempt to possibly win more time.

Because there were a million things he'd want to ask, but somehow the words refused to form on his lips. So instead, he settled on something that wasn't even a question.

Not at all.

"Your parents must be really, really proud of you."

She smiled at him, a polite "Thank you" falling from her lips before she slipped away.

As crazy as it sounds, Blaine takes comfort in the fact that from this point on he'll get to live the rest of his life believing that things go bump in the night, and somewhere beyond the sea his lover stands.

On golden sands.

And watches the ships that go sailing.

_**THE END**_


End file.
